Twee onbekende jonge vrouwen waarvan één met een papier in de hand before 1892

This photograph of two young women, one holding a paper, was created by Charles Scolik. It's a silver gelatin print, a process that was highly industrialized by the late 19th century. What’s fascinating about photography is that it's both a science and an art. A relatively accessible method of production, the dark room processing techniques that are required were a departure from more academic artistic skills. As a result, photography opened up artistic possibility to a different class of practitioner. It democratized image-making, yet the proliferation of images also played a key role in the development of consumer culture. Photographs like this one were easily reproduced, printed in magazines, and spread widely, creating a visual archive of society. The material of the photograph, the paper and the silver compounds, became a vehicle for communicating ideas about identity, beauty, and social status. The act of taking, developing, and distributing a photograph was interwoven with the wider structures of labor, politics, and consumption. So, when you look at this image, consider its wider circulation, and the hands through which it passed.