TERRITORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY JOEL SNYDER

KEY POINTS OF ESSAY

Joel Snyder is a professor of Art history based in Chicago.
Between 1860 and 1870 two approaches to landscape photography were put in
place, influenced by two different photographers and the aim of Snyders essay
is to explore them and the motivating factors to why they look the way they
do.
This essay gives us the general history of photography with landscape in mind,
what it also does is point out significant moments and people that changed
peoples positions, minds and approaches when it comes to cameras and what
they could and should do and even what they couldnt and shouldnt do with
them.
Snyder begins at the very beginning when cameras where just invented in 1839
and explains that the reaction was one of puzzlement as to what photography
was and exactly how it fit in in the art of picture making. The general persons
approach to this scientific mechanical device shaped its future and the approach
that photographers took when using it; the camera wasnt seen as a way to
creating art but more of a scientific breakthrough that could portray scenes, and
as the population was just enthralled by its mechanical abilities then this was the
direction it went in and not the artist path. Photographic prints were made to
look mechanical so that they wouldnt be mixed up with any other picture
making media, this was to be their unique look, photographs had something no
other device or person could offer and that was capturing real life: high finish,
endless detail and accuracy.
Snyder raises a point (P.176) about why photographers were so willing and eager
to accept this perception of them by the public, after all this was a brand new
approach to creating images and so a blank canvas. At this point photography
could have been anything they wanted it to be, with a bit of a fight it could have
been embraced by the art community, but this wasnt what was wanted. The
device was taken in by the middle class as its own and they wanted it to look and
be as different from anything else that existed as possible, after all this was a
machine that was capable of taking a factual picture without any art skills what
so ever.
THE BEGINNING
To begin with landscape photography was for a personal use and not meant for a
wide audience of people (P.179). This all changed in the 1850s when a
photographic/publication house opened its sole purpose was to sell prints of
landscape/stereographical views to tourists (this I would imagine is where post
cards began as these images where sold near points of geological interest).
These publication houses expanded and were soon not only selling each others
work but also selling to print and stationary shops, you could now get a scene

from miles away in a local shop. A network was created between photographers,
suppliers and buyers by the mid 1860s.
One particular critic Lady Elizabeth Eastlake had strong views which were not
only hers and that of the artists/other art critics, but also of the everyday
person.She believed that any inhuman device such as the camera couldnt truly
experience the world as we do so cannot show it as an artist can, which is
through a persons eyes and the way they experience the land.
Things made a change with the photograph though in approach, practice and
finish and this happened via the photographical society but not by the original
members that had artists background, who were business men or well educated,
but members from less educated backgrounds who decided that the photograph
needed to be itself and not try to be something it isnt by copying styles and
practices of other media.
Reading this (and making notes) has made me realise roughly what may have
happened to guide the photograph away from the art world and into a
completely different world of its own. With the photographic society consisting of
such middle/high class artist successful businessmen and with many of them
having a background in art, it wasnt exactly taken seriously as something in its
own right they treated it as an extension to painting/drawing in the way that
they approached the colours appearance and the finish of the image, but at the
same time they would never really view it as the same, as art other members,
more open minded more dedicated more experimental and more interested (yet
less educated members) arrived and they made choices. Photography was no
longer going to be a rich mans play toy.
THE CONVENTIONAL IMAGES OF WATKINS
Making the choices and changes they did freed them from what they thought
were the constrictions of the art world and allowed them to practice landscape
photography as they wished, in an uninterested accurate and truthful manor.
However, this did turn into a small issue for them; by the 1860s landscape
photographers needed to work out how they were going to create landscapes
that stayed away from the conventions of the art world but would also be
attractive and obviously photographic in science and craft.
A photographer from San Francisco called Carleton Watkins found an answer to
the above conundrum by mixing techniques (P.182) and technical knowhow
(from what I understand). For example, the blend he creates typifies his work
by the mid 1860s and then with these negatives creates giant flawless 20x24
inch pictures printed to an extremely high standard. This earned him a wide
spread reputation and prestige; images including views of Yosemite Park, the
Pacific Coast, Utah and Nevada.
In 1863 Oliver Wendell Holmes reviewed Watkins Yosemite photographs and
proceeds to acknowledge his ability in his craft. However, he believes that if we
went to the location the images were taken then we would see what he took and

therefore he took a recording of a sight that was created by nature. Here though
what we come up against is that the view created by Watkins of Yosemite is
meant to be one of disinterest, it is not meant to show feeling or be subjective it
is meant to be accurate detailed and polished in its final state. I think Holmes
tackles his (Watkins) work as if he is critiquing art done by paint/pencil or
sculpture and this I think is where the lines are still blurred about what
photography is and where is stands in the world.I think this theory is echoed by
Snyder in his essay (P.185). Snyder points out something that many people,
Watkins and Holmes included, do not see, which is that complete disinterest and
showing exactly what is there and how our eyes see the scene is not entirely
accurate as the way Watkins presented his Yosemite image(s). They were in fact
adaptions to how landscapes were presented in other media (soft vigorous
foregrounds combined with marvellously delicate and barely distinct
backgrounds).
This is where it gets strange and ironic, painters and other artists looked at
Watkins work as a Mechanical non-artistic outsider and used his images to
confirm the way in which they constructed their paintings. This was another
distinctive point for photography, Watkins and those photographers like him
aimed now to take (P.185) scientifically sanctioned pictures of nature, escaping
artifice, personal interest, subjective response and be completely honest.
Snyders theory was that photography overwhelmed viewers in the 1960s, that
they didnt understand they were looking at landscape pictures and that
photography hadnt escaped the conventions of the art world as they and
everyone thought but actually adopted and adapted them.
Yosemite had already been written about by travellers exclaiming about its
beauty and Watkins work had confirmed this and had also shown accessibility
and grandeur. As I said earlier his works of Yosemite changed things and for him
it was the turning point. He chose to adapt this technique to other scenes;
images that advertised the areas he chose were created showing unspoiled
idyllic places to live/visit (P.185). When first writing this I originally put almost
advertising and then changed it, what Watkins was doing and continued to do
was advertise, he was successful with his approach his popularity grew and this
can be seen by the result of commissions he had (as well as his own personal
views not commissioned being published) for many different companies/states.
But his mining and rail work images are the ones that I would say are almost his
most controversial, this is not apparent so far but reading on in the essay it
becomes obvious that his work is less about non interest and lack of human
subjectivity and more about photographic manipulative staging taking a true
scene out of context for his employers-this is how I have reached this opinion.
Snyder talks about how Watkins tries to (P.187) portray a visual harmony
between the land and the new development on it. His job was to sell the
development, the changes as positive attractive and in everyones best interest.
It was progress after all and it needed to be seen by others as a good thing, but
also to look inviting to other potential investors (companies). His work shows that

the beauty of the land has been left un-affected by any developments (with
photographers seen as portrayers of the truth then these photographs as they
are being shown will be believed at the pure scientific unadulterated truth) that it
can take even more development and the beauty would still remain.
With hindsight because we can look into history and see how things develop
overtime, you can honestly see that all his apparent non subjectivity has gone. If
it hadnt gone, if it was done and approached with pure disinterest and it was
just a mechanism that scientifically showed the truth, then where is the full truth.
For example, the truth about how all this land had been obtained, where the
original occupants now resided and how they were treated. Surely this would be
the full disinterested factual truth. It honestly makes me wonder about his
intentions, was this all about getting work and being willing to do anything that
was asked of him or did he enjoy make something ugly attractive, but surely that
would imply that there was a lot of subjectivity. One thing I know is that at this
point even though there is work for photography nobody really understood its
place in the world yet so many photographers/people say its one thing but
unknowingly do something else with it.
THE UNCONVENTIONAL IMAGES OF O'SULLIVAN

Watkins raises in popularity, he wins awards because they address the

expectations of an audience that has romanticized this situation, but things are
to change yet again with photography in the form of two particular people Timothy OSullivan and Clarence King. OSullivan is somebody I have come
across before in the essay of Rosalind Krauss, although the information in this
essay by Snyder talks a bit more detail about his career and his contribution to
putting photography on its path. Clarence King was not a photographer but an
American geologist that believed that the countrys vast land needed to be
surveyed thoroughly, not by the un-trained military but by scientists and
engineers. He presented this to congress (at the age of 25) as a disinterested
scientist wanting only to find out accurate information and to then put that
information in the hands of those that can use it (e.g.) scientists, land
management experts and mining company engineers. This expedition started in
1867-1874 and he took OSullivan as the photographer who was perceived as
one of the best field photographers (known for his photographic work on the
battle field).
OSullivans work for this expedition was primarily of the Great Basin, Nevada,
Arizona, Utah and new Mexico. OSullivan isnt interested in selling his prints to
a large audience, and on top of that they largely contradict the pieces created by
Watkins time and time again (P.191). They portray a bleak, inhospitable land, a
godforsaken anesthetizing landscape.
There is much speculation on the actual presence of OSullivan in the expedition
and what it was he was actually there for, and there is a significant difference of
opinion between Snyder and Krauss when it comes to him his job description

given to him from king was to provide generally descriptive photographs of the
places he visited, to give a sense of place but very few people actually saw
these images other than professionals in congress and the army.
The strangest part for me is after the final (P.192) report of the expedition in
1879 when OSullivan just drops of the radar his name and photographs are not
seen or heard of again until 1939.
In 1939 a number of OSullivans images were discovered by Ansel Adams who
sent them to Beaumont Newhall, then acting curator of the department of
photography at the museum of modern Art in New York city.
OSullivans images were viewed/seen as technically deficient even for the times
(P.192) but the content surrealistic and disturbing when reading the essay of
Rosalind Krauss she made quite a point of saying that he did not technically take
his own image he had a technician, but the views and composition was his own.
So this has me wondering, if Timothy OSullivan had been taking his own
photographs then a man of his timed experience would not have created
technically deficient pictures . My two thoughts are that either he had a
different technician for each photographic assignment and the only one available
for the expedition was lacking in experience, or he was forced into a position
where he had no option but to take his own images.
Newhalls opinion was that OSullivans photographs were prototypical
modernist photographic landscapes and published some of them in his histories
(P.192) and part of the modernist history of photography.
The most popular of the published images of OSullivans was Sand Dunes near
Carson City, Nevada Territory (1867) the wagon Sullivans darkroom and the
footprints his own. This particular image does many things. The first is, according
to Snyder, that he heroizes himself and his work that had taken place in this
baron land. The work was slightly misleading because of its staged positioning.
But the other thing which is the most important is that the land is shown in a
completely different light, yet again different to the way Watkins portrayed it .
His work however, was not entirely honest in its portrayal; if we believed what
we saw then this would tell us that this land is incapable of supporting life and
completely inhospitable, in other words not an ideal location for farmlands
settlements etc. However because we as a human race know better than to
believe what we see, Snyder knows that his image was staged , that the wagon
was dragged into its position, that the photo intentionally cut out the great flat
red earth plateau, and this sand is intermittent not endless. So why cut it out,
why mislead he could have seen a great shot that he thought would be
powerful but to what end, as he never published his prints other than for the
use of the expedition. He appears to have gone the opposite way to Watkins
because instead of pointing out positivity he went for negativity. But still, why
miss out the red earth? Surely that still would look uninviting unless things were
growing in it? If things were growing in the red earth then surely that would be
something congress would need to see, to know.

OSullivans pictures from this expedition continued down this road of negativity,
yes he uses people/figures in his images but he does it in an unorthodox manner,
he uses them to show how inhumane the land is and how incompatible humans
will be with it, in other words we would not survive here or be happy if we tried to
settle here (Image6.9,P.195). It is Snyders interest and the point to his essay to
shed some light on these two different approaches to landscape photography
The main goal for Watkins was his brief from his employers, which is made clear
from the images he created:
The land was portrayed as Gods county and, coincidentally, that of the
railroads, real estate, and mining interests as well. It was a land of the main
chance and the second chance.
But what about OSullivan, he was a part of a scientific expedition, the first led by
civilians for the government, the first real look at their land. The images did not
conform to audiences expectations as Watkins did, what OSullivan showed was
not a land to be explored by landscape photographers/artists but a land that
needed to be explored by professionals, by scientists an unknown land that
needed to be understood by the right people. He was in fact trying to show a
true feel for the territory if not in sometimes a misleading fashion.
CONCLUSION
With an opinion on both the workings of O'Sullivan and Watkins from reading this
essay I could be judgemental about either of the approaches but the truth is that
these approaches have continued in photography since their (Watkins and
O'Sullivan) time and exists within most photographical pieces, including my own.
I could and do often say that I photograph what is in front of me but things are
never truly that simple, there are generally different way's you can make a scene
look depending on where you stand or if you stand, looking up or looking down,
standing more to the right or more to the left can be choices that alter the image
all together and these choices are made depending on what it is you actually
want to show, to put across. I personally like to show the positive in the areas
that I photograph the majority of the time (depending on the weather, subject
and my frame of mind), and it goes without saying that these images do
generally appeal to a broader audience in terms of selling (this is true for the
past and the present) but I have a large amount of admiration for O'Sullivan's
sometimes brutal approach to representing the truth - his version of honesty is
misleading in places but I can understand that he was trying to really emphasise
what he saw in front of him, even if negative.
In this essay by Snyder you see how photography starts to evolve and how
people/photographers start to figure out how it can be used in the world of
landscape, how - even though they are unaware at the beginning - they adapt
current art techniques to work for them and the images that they create; this is
the point (I believe) that the media (photography) starts to really find its feet and
photographers from all around (knowingly or unknowingly) use their individuality
(as artists do) to create a lot of different styles just as painters are known to do
and I believe O'Sullivan and Watkins had a lot so do with this, such powerful

contrasting talents show the different ways people could really get the most out
of this scientific approach to capturing a scene.