Timothy O'Sullivan
Tufa Domes, Pyramid Lake, Nevada
1868
Collodion glass negative printed on albumen paper
I am sure that there are earlier examples of landscape photography, but none as memorable for me. Timothy O'Sullivan was a portrait photographer by Matthew Brady and ended up traveling south to photograph the Civil War in the 1860's. When the war was over he joined one of the four great United States Geological Surveys to help document the American West of the Mississippi. It had been photographed before. He was simply there to document the land, but he did more than that, he created a series of the most spectacular photographic landscapes the world had ever seen. One hundred and fifty years later his work still rivals the more modern work of Ansel Adams.
I started with O'Sullivan because his style of photographic images are the pinnacle that most beginning landscape photographers stive for. Yet the field of landscape photography and documentation is so much more diverse than perfectly composed shots of the American West. How do you define landscape and documentation? Are our definitions too narrow?
So students... a true experiment. I would like you to respond to this image with your own images and thoughts. Let's see where this collaboration heads. Every couple of weeks I will likely throw in some more history about photographic landscape and ask you to again respond with your own images and words.
There are only a couple of rules:
- This site is public and rated for a general audience. Please keep that in mind. I will moderate the comments for the first couple weeks and let you know if I have any concerns. I want you to feel free to explore creatively but keep in mind that you must respect others.
- Each student must originate a post every two weeks. That post should include an original photograph. The photograph can be taken with any type of camera - digital, film, point and shoot. Please discuss your image, the making of your image, why you chose that image, a concept you are thinking about, reference to history, etc. In other words post a paragraph or two that gives us insight to your process as a photographer. The image should consider "documentation and landscape."
- Each student should comment on a minimum of three other students' posts
- Have fun. Don't worry, fret, or get stuffy. If you have an interesting idea, run with it.
And, off we go...
