Photographing the American West | Abel Owen

William Henry Jackson

Perhaps one of the most intriguing geographical and cultural features of America is the idea of the West. The history of the ‘Wild West’, defined by cowboy culture and rapid Western expansion, as well as that of the Indigenous Americans who inhabited the region prior to the settlers, paints a picture of America at the turn of the twentieth century against an idyllic backdrop of deserts, plains and mountains. These features of the region coincided with the emergence of photography as its own distinct art form and provided the opportune setting for photographic experimentation and expression.

One of the pioneers of both the West as inspiration for photography was Carleton Watkins. This was large in part due to his photos claiming credit for the designation of Yosemite, one of the most famous wildlife areas in the country, as a national park, though virtually unknown by the white settlers prior.

Watkins’ prints boast, literally, ‘mammoth’ sizes, being printed on large glass plates which preceded the invention of photographic film, enabling him to create stunning images of the Sierra Nevada, such as those above, which gained popularity rapidly nationwide in the late nineteenth century. His photographs seem to capture a moment of America prior to the rapid urbanisation that defines much of the geographic west today, yet in a clarity shocking for his time. The speed required to coat and expose the mammoth plates required Watkins to transport a ‘travelling darkroom’, chemicals and all, through the terrain he photographed, an effort and achievement that truly distinguishes Watkins from other photographers of the same period.

The work of another early landscape photographer, William Henry Jackson, can form many parallels with Watkins’ work: his Yosemite was Yellowstone, and likewise he was required to go to extreme lengths to capture his images, which were used as evidence for the existence of numerous natural landmarks. On one occasion, the mule he was riding lost its footing, causing him to lose an entire month’s work due to the fragility of the glass plates.

However, other aspects of Jackson’s work show a slightly different perspective on the Western expansion, possibly due to both his photographs of the newly built transcontinental railroad, and of the Native American settlements near to his photography studio in Nebraska (as shown below), which provide a fascinating visual record of the region in the late 19th century.

The slightly later work of Edward S. Curtis, both a photographer and ethnologist, lives as a record of the social interactions often overlooked by the landscape photographers of the West: his life’s work, the North American Indian, served as his documentation of the lives of the Native Americans through thousands of photographs and audio recordings. However, despite his most likely well-meaning intentions, Curtis’ Pictorialist style of photography, which focused on the picturesque and photography as art rather than documentation, has been contemporarily criticised for its Romantic, stylistic portrayal of native tribes and focus on a visually pleasing artwork – at the expense of a truthful representation of reality.

Looking at Curtis’ work as below, his focus on the artistic element is obvious. This is both through the soft focus, especially in his portraits, and the artistic composition that makes much of his artwork appear staged, somewhat contradicting his original purpose in producing these photographs.

Arguably one of the most famous photographers of the twentieth century was Ansel Adams, whose photographs also focused on the West. Adams’ images are immediately recognisable through their simple yet cleverly planned compositions and intense dynamic range, as he broke away from his early Pictorialist style to focus on intensely realistic portrayals of the world around him.

Born and raised in California, much of Adams’ photography centred around the landscapes of Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada region, which additionally served as an influence for his advocacy for environmental conservation. His work is set apart from those before him, such as Carleton Watkins, by an emphasis on the transient and ephemeral nature of the landscape: he has been described as understanding “the specific quality of light that fell on a specific place at a specific moment”. His characteristic black and white style adds to this, creating a greater contrast between the shadows and highlights of his photographs, resulting in a dynamic yet realistic-looking image.