Such an old question: Truth or beauty? Which matters in a photograph -- or are they one and the same? Is nature better captured in the glistening Curtis image below, or perhaps in simple black and white, or maybe in color? What is it that we mean by "better" -- truer to our eye, or more beautiful?
Curtis wrote of the process of gold-toning:
The ordinary photographic print, however good, lacks depth and transparency, or more strictly speaking, translucency. We all know how beautiful are the stones and pebbles in the limpid brook of the forest where the water absorbs the blue of the sky and the green of the foliage, yet when we take the same iridescent pebbles from the water and dry them they are dull and lifeless, so it is with the orthodox photographic print, but in the Curt-tones all the translucency is retained and they are as full of life and sparkle as an opal.

What would Curtis have said if someone had pointed out to him that opals were neither alive nor dead?

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