Yo-Semite Fall (2634 feet high), from near Hutchings', with excursion party 1870

Curator: Before us is a stereoscopic albumen print titled "Yo-Semite Fall (2634 feet high), from near Hutchings', with excursion party" created by John P. Soule in 1870. It presents a view of Yosemite Valley in California. Editor: My first thought? "Honey, I shrunk the waterfalls!" Seriously though, it’s epic, yet kind of adorable. Look at those tiny people huddled at the bottom! Makes you feel…well, both massive and insignificant. Curator: Precisely. This photograph exists within a historical context where landscape photography served not only as documentation but as a form of promoting the American West and inspiring national pride. This also aligns somewhat with the Hudson River School style. Editor: I see it. You can feel the push and pull between human ambition, that drive to explore and 'conquer' nature and the sheer, indifferent scale of everything else. That excursion party almost looks like an afterthought, doesn't it? They're definitely upstaged! Curator: They also hint at a burgeoning tourism industry drawn to these landscapes, partially fueled by photographs like this circulating back East, inciting that need to "See it for yourself." Notice how Soule positions them for maximum visibility? He’s essentially selling an experience. Editor: It’s amazing how a simple photo, technically skilled or not, can say so much about what people yearned for and how society viewed the land at that time. I'd love to transport myself there to stand on that valley. Even to capture some of my own memories! Curator: Absolutely, the very act of photographing wilderness spaces shaped both their preservation, paradoxically they spurred its consumption. An interesting intersection between the Romantic sublime and Gilded Age ambition, wouldn't you agree? Editor: It certainly gives you a new perspective, seeing nature through the lens of ambition! Thank you! Curator: The pleasure was mine! I see a lot that photography offers us as historians in addition to just the artistic sentiment.