The first photographer of the American West.

Timothy O’Sullivan (1840-1882) was the official photographer of the US Geological Exploration of the newly explored American West in the 1870s, having been a journeyman on Matthew Brady’s staff photographing the killing fields of the American Civil War.

Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, 1873.

Unlike the later images of Ansel Adams, these are mercifully not crassly over processed. Just straight prints which do the land due justice.

White House ruins, Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, 1873.

O’Sullivan used the wet collodion process which necessitates the taking of the picture with a freshly coated, wet glass plate in the camera. Once dry it loses its light sensitivity. It’s not clear how sensitive the film was but judging from O’Sullivan’s images of posed groups he was probably using exposures of no more than 1-2 seconds. So I’m guessing maybe 1-2 ISO.

His images of Utah and Arizona remind us just how special the landscapes of the American West really are. If I have a favorite location it has to be Monument Valley on the Utah-Arizona border.

These were probably the first ever photographs made of the American West. You can see much more here.

I took the picture below in beautiful Utah a couple of decades ago, using a Rollei 6003 MF film camera. While heavy, it was without a doubt the best handling chest-level camera I have used, with state-of-the-art ergonomics and optional exposure automation. The Zeiss lenses weren’t half bad, either, and no wet collodion was involved. The film was scanned on a Nikon Coolscan 8000 MF scanner. Both camera and scanner are long sold, with superior quality easily obtainable from modern DSLR hardware at a fraction of the cost with far less weight.

Utah, Rollei 6003 Professional, 40mm Distagon, Kodak Portra.