Union Square, San Francisco, General View from Geary St. to North 1887

Editor: This is Isaiah West Taber's "Union Square, San Francisco, General View from Geary St. to North." It's a photograph with added color, quite charming! I’m struck by how the built environment and the natural landscape exist together. What do you see in this piece? Curator: I see a manufactured image meant for consumption. Taber’s studio mass-produced these views. The hand-tinting, applied by laborers, romanticizes a rapidly industrializing San Francisco, turning raw materials into a commodity. Editor: So, it’s not just about the pretty scene but about the process of making and selling it? Curator: Exactly! Consider the labor involved, the materials used – photographic chemicals, paper, dyes – all contributing to the image’s value as both art and product. Editor: That gives me a totally different perspective! I'll never look at hand-tinted photographs the same way again. Curator: And that's the point, isn't it? To see beyond the surface, into the complex web of production.