Framing the West

By Greyson Gilbert

I am not an artistic writer, nor an expert on writing about art. But, what I think is cool about art is that you don't have to be an expert to appreciate it. Art itself is unique in that although something may be hundreds or even thousands of years old, we can still learn something new about ourselves and the world around us from it. 

Today, photography is far and above the most common art form among people. Whether they conceive it as art or not, look around and you can probably find someone snapping a picture with their phone or a camera. In the 1800’s, however, photography was a relatively new medium. For men like Timothy O’Sullivan, the process of taking a photo included multiple steps employing multiple different types of chemicals, precisely manipulating glass plates and exposures, and then developing the photo in more chemicals in a dark room or studio, if they have access to one. O’Sullivan, however, made the precise operations that he had to accomplish to achieve a good finished product even more difficult while exploring the wild west of the 1870’s. On top of survival, exploration, and long rides on horseback, he took the first photos of many awe-inspiring sights in the Rocky Mountains and beyond while traveling with multiple mapping expeditions. Chances are you have seen O'Sullivan's work from his civil war photographs, which are intense, powerful, and telling. His photos recount the life of soldiers and the casualties at Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, and other locations.  

O’Sullivan's lesser recognized work from his western travels inspires me in the way he captured the wide open spaces. His photographs were groundbreaking in their quality and how they accurately displayed such harsh conditions. His work gave a glimpse into the mostly unexplored western landscape of America. Today, O’Sullivan’s photographs serve as a flashback to what the West looked like long before millions of people altered the landscape. The west itself inspires me as it holds some of the last great wild places that this country has to offer, and O’Sullivan’s tedious documentation of some of the wildest and most otherworldly places on earth give us one of the last true glimpses of the West as it was for thousands of years. 

I picked up a 60 year old film camera earlier last year and attempted to emulate the way he captured the west, in my own way. Its challenging to capture an image in this fashion. As it is with most pursuits in life worth chasing, it takes patience and can be humbling and frustrating.