Krajem devetnaestog vijeka fotograf Timothy O’Sullivan napravio je neke od najboljih fotografija u američkoj historiji. Poslije američkog građanskog rata putovao je sa mnogim ekspedicijama kako bi dokumentovao osvajanje novih teritorija na američkom zapadu. Ekspedicije su bile sastavljene od vojnika, naučnika, umjetnika i fotografa, i zadatak im je bio da otkriju nove prirodne resurse. Zapad koji su tada zatekli ubrzo će se bitno izmijeniti, ostaće samo fotografije da svjedoče o onome što je nekada bilo.
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A man sits in a wooden boat with a mast on the edge of the Colorado River in the Black Canyon, Mojave County, Arizona. At this time, photographer Timothy O’Sullivan was working as a military photographer, for Lt. George Montague Wheeler’s U.S. Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian. Photo taken in 1871, from expedition camp 8, looking upstream [Photos: Atlantic]
Pah-Ute (Paiute) Indian group, near Cedar, Utah, in 1872
Members of Clarence King’s Fortieth Parallel Survey team, near Oreana, Nevada, in 1867
Panoramic view of tents and a camp identified as ‘Camp Beauty’, rock towers and canyon walls in Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona. Tents and possibly a lean-to shelter stand on the canyon floor, near trees and talus. Photographed in 1873
Old Mission Church, Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico. View from the plaza in 1873
Boat crew of the ‘Picture’ at Diamond Creek. Photo shows photographer Timothy O’Sullivan, fourth from left, with fellow members of the Wheeler survey and Native Americans, following ascent of the Colorado River through the Black Canyon in 1871
Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho. A view across top of the falls in 1874
A man sits on a rocky shore beside the Colorado River in Iceberg Canyon, on the border of Mojave County, Arizona, and Clark County, Nevada in 1871
Timothy O’Sullivan’s darkroom wagon, pulled by four mules, entered the frame at the right side of the photograph, reached the center of the image, and turned around, heading back out of the frame. Footprints lead from the wagon toward the camera, revealing the photographer’s path. Photo taken in 1867, in the Carson Sink, part of Nevada’s Carson Desert
The mining town of Gold Hill, just south of Virginia City, Nevada, in 1867
A wooden balanced incline used for gold mining, at the Illinois Mine in the Pahranagat Mining District, Nevada in 1871. An ore car would ride on parallel tracks connected to a pulley wheel at the top of tracks
In 1867, O’Sullivan traveled to Virginia City, Nevada to document the activities at the Savage and the Gould and Curry mines on the Comstock Lode, the richest silver deposit in America. Working nine hundred feet underground, lit by an improvised flash – a burning magnesium wire, O’Sullivan photographed the miners in tunnels, shafts, and lifts
Headlands north of the Colorado River Plateau, 1872
Native American (Paiute) men, women and children sit or stand and pose in rows under a tree near probably Cottonwood Springs (Washoe County), Nevada, in 1875
Aboriginal life among the Navajo Indians. Near old Fort Defiance, New Mexico, in 1873
View of the White House, Ancestral Pueblo Native American (Anasazi) ruins in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, in 1873. The cliff dwellings were built by the Anasazi more than 500 years earlier. At bottom, men stand and pose on cliff dwellings in a niche and on ruins on the canyon floor. Climbing ropes connect the groups of men
The ‘Nettie’, an expedition boat on the Truckee River, western Nevada, in 1867
Maiman, a Mojave Indian, guide and interpreter during a portion of the season in the Colorado country, in 1871
Alta City, Little Cottonwood, Utah, ca. 1873
Oak Grove, White Mountains, Sierra Blanca, Arizona in 1873