Head of Wanga Valley c. 1867

Curator: Samuel Bourne’s “Head of Wanga Valley” is a striking image; it makes me think of how small we are against nature’s grand stage. Editor: It’s beautiful, certainly, but the real story is in Bourne’s process. Imagine the labor involved in lugging all that equipment up a mountain! Curator: Absolutely. I see Bourne capturing not just a landscape, but a mood—that humbling stillness before something immense. Do you think he saw the sublime here? Editor: I wonder if he thought about the people who lived there, their relationship to the land, and the colonial gaze inherent in his photography. Curator: A good point. It is like he's both admiring and appropriating simultaneously. Editor: Right, plus, consider the chemistry: collodion process, glass plates...he was practically a traveling darkroom! Curator: He's capturing a landscape but also time itself. Editor: Exactly. Every image is the result of physical effort, chemical reactions, and a loaded social history.