Four Season In France

In Europe, this year is one to commemorate the beginning of the Great War, with much reflection about the political and cultural atmosphere leading up to World War I 100 years ago.
While the earth has become a different place to live in the past century – with four times as many people, vastly more efficient transportation infrastructure and an increasing globalization that, at least from appearances, has made populations more similar (as a self-proclaimed brilliant professor once told me, “the entire world is becoming global”) – there are also those who argue that we face equally challenging political and cultural challenges similar to that time.

Given the above, it is also interesting to understand the parallels between the technologies of that time, and, since we’re all interested in photography here on The Luminous Landscape, how the photographic medium is/was undergoing transformation – and how it was being used to try and bridge cultures – then and now.

The overarching narrati...