Frankfurt am Main_ Neue Kräme c. 1862

Editor: So, this albumen print, "Frankfurt am Main_ Neue Kräme," was captured around 1862 by Carl Friedrich Mylius. The detail is fascinating, you can almost feel yourself standing on that quiet street. What really strikes me is the stillness – a frozen moment in time. What catches your eye? Curator: That stillness is precisely what speaks to me too, though I hear it whisper of a before and after, a city poised. Consider, this is Frankfurt on the cusp of great change – before it becomes fully industrialized, before so much of its old architecture is lost. Do you see how Mylius uses the light? It's not just illuminating, it's almost… mourning. Editor: Mourning? I hadn't thought of that. Curator: Yes, that delicate balance of light and shadow seems to foreshadow the transformation. It almost makes the buildings feel like specters. Have you ever felt that, standing in an old city, a sense of the lives lived there, fading but still present? Editor: That’s a powerful image. I guess I was focused on the crisp details, the architecture. Now I see a story lurking beneath. What do you think he was trying to say about his city? Curator: Perhaps not so much "saying" as feeling his way through its shifting identity. Photography at that time, it wasn't just documentation. It was about capturing the soul, don't you think? Editor: Definitely something to ponder. I came in looking at buildings; now I’m seeing ghosts! Curator: Precisely! That is why I’m drawn to it - how Mylius hints at both what’s visible and invisible in a rapidly changing Frankfurt. It leaves me a sense of a story continuing outside the frame, beckoning me in.