Untitled (crowd watching band perform, trumpet player) c. 1950

Editor: This is an untitled silver gelatin print by Jack Gould, showing a trumpet player performing for a crowd. It's quite striking as a negative image. What's your take on the process and its impact here? Curator: The negative highlights the material process, making us aware of photography's industrial nature. Consider the labor involved: the photographer, the printing process, and the subjects participating in a social event. Does this reverse tone change how we consume the image, given that it abstracts the immediate context? Editor: I hadn't thought about it like that, focusing on the labor involved. I was thinking more about how the negative sort of obscures. Curator: Exactly. The photographic process itself becomes foregrounded, making visible the means of production and complicating our understanding of the image’s social context. Editor: That's a great perspective. It really shifts the focus.