Buitenzorg - Achter Hotel Belle-Vue 1863 - 1869

This photograph, "Buitenzorg - Achter Hotel Belle-Vue," was captured by Woodbury & Page using a process that combines chemistry and light. The sepia tones and soft focus give the image a dreamlike quality, and this aesthetic was achieved through meticulous work in the darkroom, manipulating light-sensitive materials to create the final print. This approach to photography treats it as a manual craft that relies on skilled hands and expert knowledge, raising it beyond the mechanics of merely capturing an image. The scene shows a landscape in Java, Indonesia, which at the time, was under Dutch colonial rule. The presence of a grand hotel suggests that the image was created for a European audience eager to consume romanticized images of exotic lands. By understanding the labor and the social context in which this photograph was produced, we can more fully appreciate the cultural narratives it conveys. We can then move beyond seeing it just as a captured scene, and more as a carefully constructed image.