Gezicht op Remagen aan de Rijn, Duitsland 1878

Anselm Schmitz made this photograph of Remagen, Germany, in Cologne around 1878. The image, a small rectangle, is made of paper, coated with chemicals that react to light. Photography like this was a new technology at the time, and it transformed not only art but also labor. It took the labor of image-making away from painters, and reassigned it to technicians. In a portrait studio, a photographer could produce dozens of images in a day. This efficiency turned people into consumers, gobbling up images rather than commissioning them. Think about the labor implied in the image itself. Note the railroad running into town, a new technology enabled by mass production and connecting Remagen to an industrialized world. And the vineyards? Their bounty will also soon be exported, as agriculture becomes a globalized phenomenon. Schmitz’ photograph may look like a quaint landscape, but it’s also a document of a changing world – and of the changing relationship between labor, image-making, and consumer culture.