Man met op de achtergrond een brug en een waterval c. 1860 - 1880

Editor: This gelatin-silver print, titled "Man met op de achtergrond een brug en een waterval" by Achille Quinet, likely taken between 1860 and 1880, has a serene but somewhat lonely feeling to it. What can you tell me about it? Curator: It’s fascinating how this photographic process allows us to see landscape as a commodity. Here, silver halide crystals, suspended in gelatin derived from animal collagen, have been carefully manipulated. Look at the bridge: timber sourced, milled, assembled through human labor, all captured as an object within the frame. How does the act of photographing—a relatively new industrial process at the time—alter our relationship to nature? Is it consumption? Preservation? Editor: That's interesting! So, you’re saying the photograph transforms this natural landscape into a sort of product? Curator: Precisely. This print would have been circulated, viewed in parlors, traded… The sitter here might have been posing, perhaps paid for his time to be framed within it as well. Every aspect becomes enmeshed with the prevailing social and economic systems. Even the waterfall is harnessed, re-presented for viewing. Editor: So the materials themselves, from the gelatin to the silver, and even the wood of the bridge, tell a story about production and consumption at this time? Curator: Exactly. It asks us to think about how seemingly timeless landscapes are actively produced and consumed within very specific historical and material conditions. It highlights a key concept. It shows how photographic reproduction, by capturing this scene, further integrates nature into a cycle of exchange. Editor: I never thought of landscape photography this way! I guess it encourages me to consider everything as "made," in a sense. Curator: It certainly made me question what appears "natural".