1 00:00:01,440 --> 00:00:05,960 Speaker 1: Repeat photography done one hundred years apart, is giving us 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:09,000 Speaker 1: a sense of a West that once looked and functioned 3 00:00:09,200 --> 00:00:13,000 Speaker 1: very differently than the modern landscapes we now live in 4 00:00:13,360 --> 00:00:36,480 Speaker 1: or visit. I'm Dan Flores, and this is the American West, 5 00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:43,360 Speaker 1: time and time again, the fascinating evidence from Western repeat photography. 6 00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:48,320 Speaker 1: In episode thirteen of this podcast, I said a few 7 00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:54,320 Speaker 1: things about the West's great nineteenth century landscape photographers. For 8 00:00:54,440 --> 00:00:58,520 Speaker 1: almost four decades, from the eighteen sixties through the eighteen nineties, 9 00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:05,160 Speaker 1: photographers like Edward Mybridge, William Henry Jackson, Timothy O'Sullivan and 10 00:01:05,240 --> 00:01:09,800 Speaker 1: their assistants lugged hundreds of pounds of equipment, heavy eight 11 00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:15,720 Speaker 1: x ten wet plate cameras, tripods, fragile glass negatives, entire 12 00:01:15,880 --> 00:01:20,560 Speaker 1: portable dark rooms. In my Bridge's case, ropes and pulleys 13 00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:26,000 Speaker 1: to lower himself down precipitous canyon walls to photograph the West. 14 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:32,759 Speaker 1: They composed shots in their viewfinders, inserted dripping glass plates 15 00:01:32,800 --> 00:01:37,760 Speaker 1: to capture a negative, then removed len's covers and counted 16 00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:44,520 Speaker 1: down exposures. They did this from Colorado to California, Arizona 17 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:48,480 Speaker 1: to Idaho in search of what they called the best 18 00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:53,760 Speaker 1: general views. Some of them, like Jackson, were working for 19 00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:59,480 Speaker 1: the railroads, which periodically employed photographers to convey the settlement 20 00:01:59,560 --> 00:02:04,360 Speaker 1: possible of the West to easterners. But O'Sullivan, and for 21 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:08,600 Speaker 1: much of his career Jackson two, was photographing the best 22 00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:12,359 Speaker 1: scenery in the West as a government employee of the 23 00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:15,440 Speaker 1: brand new United States Geological Survey. 24 00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:18,600 Speaker 2: It's so called Great Surveys. 25 00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:23,800 Speaker 1: Post Civil War explorations into intriguing parts of the West, 26 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:29,360 Speaker 1: led by twenty and thirty somethings John Wesley Powell, Clarence King, 27 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:37,519 Speaker 1: Ferdinand Hayden, and George Wheeler mapp rivers examined mineral possibilities 28 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:42,960 Speaker 1: and puzzled out the geological story of the West. The 29 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:46,919 Speaker 1: Survey leaders took along painters to portray the West, among 30 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:51,200 Speaker 1: whom the most famous became Thomas Moran. This is why 31 00:02:51,280 --> 00:02:55,320 Speaker 1: there is today a Moran Point on the south rim 32 00:02:55,320 --> 00:03:00,240 Speaker 1: of the Grand Canyon, another Moran point in Yosemite, and 33 00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:04,520 Speaker 1: an artist point in the Canyon of the Yellowstone that 34 00:03:04,639 --> 00:03:08,960 Speaker 1: most assumed was named for Moran, although Moran actually painted 35 00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:12,880 Speaker 1: his famous Oil of the Lower Falls from a spot 36 00:03:12,919 --> 00:03:16,880 Speaker 1: across the gorge. But the Great Survey leaders knew well 37 00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:21,720 Speaker 1: that most landscape painters endeavored to convey how a landscape 38 00:03:21,760 --> 00:03:25,800 Speaker 1: made a viewer feel, rather than produce a precise rendering 39 00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:30,000 Speaker 1: of geology and form. To capture what the West truly 40 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:33,560 Speaker 1: looked like, they needed, above all, to employ the masters 41 00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:39,000 Speaker 1: of the new technological Marvel called the camera a device 42 00:03:39,200 --> 00:03:43,920 Speaker 1: as brand new, shocking, and in the eighteen sixties and seventies, 43 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:49,880 Speaker 1: as full of wild possibility as ai is now. The 44 00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:54,800 Speaker 1: Great Survey photographs by Jackson and O'Sullivan, along with landscape 45 00:03:54,880 --> 00:03:58,080 Speaker 1: images by lesser known photographers that work in the West 46 00:03:58,320 --> 00:04:01,480 Speaker 1: one hundred years or more ago, were earth. 47 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:02,720 Speaker 2: Shattering in their time. 48 00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:07,240 Speaker 1: They provided a kind of first view, or at least 49 00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:11,280 Speaker 1: a first entirely believable view, of the West, for the 50 00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:15,040 Speaker 1: American public. Since then, these one hundred and fifty year 51 00:04:15,080 --> 00:04:18,720 Speaker 1: old images have become just as critical to understanding the 52 00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:22,200 Speaker 1: West we now know as they were for people in 53 00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:38,039 Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies, but for a very different reason. That 54 00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:42,080 Speaker 1: reason is a fine one for thinking about a great 55 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:48,160 Speaker 1: many aspects of Western nature. For starters, a landscape photograph 56 00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:51,919 Speaker 1: from the dawn of photography offers those of us in 57 00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:58,520 Speaker 1: its future a baseline against which to measure change. Now 58 00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:02,919 Speaker 1: imagine the possibilityies of pairing a baseline image from the 59 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:07,880 Speaker 1: eighteen sixties or even the early nineteen hundreds alongside a 60 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:12,880 Speaker 1: modern image of the very same scene taken in our time. 61 00:05:13,680 --> 00:05:18,320 Speaker 1: What might a comparison tell you about geological time, about 62 00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:24,720 Speaker 1: ecological processes, about the advance or retreat of civilization and technology, 63 00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:29,599 Speaker 1: perhaps even about climate change. How might a comparison between 64 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:33,799 Speaker 1: two photos of the same scene shot one hundred years 65 00:05:33,839 --> 00:05:40,560 Speaker 1: apart help resolve some pressing modern question, or, at its simplest, 66 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:44,720 Speaker 1: give us a sense of how a landscape looked then 67 00:05:45,279 --> 00:05:48,840 Speaker 1: as opposed to how it looks now, and if there 68 00:05:48,839 --> 00:05:56,280 Speaker 1: are differences, pondering why that might be the case. In 69 00:05:56,400 --> 00:06:01,000 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, the National Endowment for the Arts and 70 00:06:01,080 --> 00:06:06,040 Speaker 1: the US Geological Survey produced a seminal book that took 71 00:06:06,120 --> 00:06:10,040 Speaker 1: on at least part of this fascinating thought bubble, the 72 00:06:10,120 --> 00:06:15,080 Speaker 1: task of setting baseline and modern photographs of the same 73 00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:20,600 Speaker 1: places side by side. As the introduction of second view, 74 00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:27,719 Speaker 1: the Rephotographic Survey Project told its readers. Between nineteen seventy 75 00:06:27,760 --> 00:06:32,600 Speaker 1: seven and nineteen seventy nine, this project sent out several 76 00:06:32,839 --> 00:06:38,040 Speaker 1: modern professional photographers into the West to reshoot one hundred 77 00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:42,599 Speaker 1: and twenty of the scenes captured by the nineteenth century 78 00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:49,240 Speaker 1: Great Survey photographers. Relying on the topographic details and the 79 00:06:49,320 --> 00:06:53,440 Speaker 1: scale in the original photographs, and on knowledge of the 80 00:06:53,480 --> 00:06:58,320 Speaker 1: fixed millimeters zoom size of the lenses on nineteenth century 81 00:06:58,360 --> 00:07:02,760 Speaker 1: eight by ten cameras so those could be replicated, the 82 00:07:02,800 --> 00:07:07,880 Speaker 1: modern day team plotted out a technique using geometic lines 83 00:07:08,240 --> 00:07:13,280 Speaker 1: to help position today's cameras in exactly the spot where 84 00:07:13,320 --> 00:07:18,000 Speaker 1: William Henry Jackson or Timothy O'Sullivan had placed their cameras 85 00:07:18,160 --> 00:07:22,920 Speaker 1: a century before. The next task was to ascertain the 86 00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:25,960 Speaker 1: moment in time the shot had been exposed in the 87 00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:29,520 Speaker 1: original photographs, the month of the year, the day of 88 00:07:29,600 --> 00:07:33,720 Speaker 1: the month, the time of day. That information came from 89 00:07:33,800 --> 00:07:38,080 Speaker 1: journals and notes Jackson and O'Sullivan kept, along with clues 90 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:42,760 Speaker 1: from shadow angles and such in the photographs themselves. The 91 00:07:42,800 --> 00:07:46,640 Speaker 1: purpose of a scientific methodology like this was to allow 92 00:07:47,120 --> 00:07:50,800 Speaker 1: history in the West to speak with the least amount 93 00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:59,000 Speaker 1: of interruption or gastad interpretation. So what does a Western 94 00:07:59,080 --> 00:08:05,240 Speaker 1: landscape when you engage in repeat photographs as carefully modulated 95 00:08:05,480 --> 00:08:08,960 Speaker 1: as these, but shot at the far ends of a 96 00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:13,600 Speaker 1: couple of human lifetimes? We all know that time marches 97 00:08:13,640 --> 00:08:18,000 Speaker 1: on relentlessly, and if you have a passing familiarity with history, 98 00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:22,400 Speaker 1: you understand that its greatest lesson is that everything is 99 00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:28,040 Speaker 1: always changing, albeit at varying rates of speed, and that 100 00:08:28,160 --> 00:08:31,680 Speaker 1: the endless test of historical change is not just to 101 00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:34,880 Speaker 1: observe it, but to try to figure out the why 102 00:08:35,280 --> 00:08:39,199 Speaker 1: of it. If the landscapes and ecology of the West 103 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:43,960 Speaker 1: possessed an unexpected similarity of appearance one hundred and fifty 104 00:08:44,040 --> 00:08:49,880 Speaker 1: years ago after lodging a surprise Wow, the natural question is, 105 00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:54,400 Speaker 1: and why was that? And if there's yet a very 106 00:08:54,440 --> 00:08:58,480 Speaker 1: different look to the Western landscape today. But again, with 107 00:08:58,600 --> 00:09:02,439 Speaker 1: our recognizable says, we ought to be able to say 108 00:09:02,720 --> 00:09:06,840 Speaker 1: that these visible changes have causes we can figure out. 109 00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:12,160 Speaker 1: Because of its broad coverage of Western places in almost 110 00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:16,840 Speaker 1: every state, the Insights of Second View is a logical 111 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:20,560 Speaker 1: starting point for understanding what repeat photography in the West 112 00:09:20,559 --> 00:09:24,360 Speaker 1: can tell us. But it's not the only reference point 113 00:09:24,520 --> 00:09:27,760 Speaker 1: I want to use here. Another is a more recent 114 00:09:27,920 --> 00:09:33,160 Speaker 1: volume called Yellowstone and the Biology of Time, published in 115 00:09:33,280 --> 00:09:37,960 Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine. A third valuable work of Western repeat 116 00:09:37,960 --> 00:09:42,240 Speaker 1: photography I'll draw on is a book titled The Colorado 117 00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:48,000 Speaker 1: front Range A Century of Ecological Change, published in nineteen 118 00:09:48,120 --> 00:09:53,239 Speaker 1: ninety one. The most recent is an online repeat photography 119 00:09:53,320 --> 00:09:57,480 Speaker 1: project by the US Geological Survey and the Northern Rocky 120 00:09:57,520 --> 00:10:03,280 Speaker 1: Mountain Science Center on the gla of Glacier National Park, Montana, 121 00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:14,040 Speaker 1: a project completed in twenty nineteen. Before proceeding to the 122 00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:18,520 Speaker 1: insights of Western repeat photography, we should marvel just a 123 00:10:18,600 --> 00:10:23,160 Speaker 1: little bit over those baseline photographs and the artists who 124 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:27,000 Speaker 1: captured them. By the time of the Great Surveys, the 125 00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:31,040 Speaker 1: stunning new technology of photography had made tremendous strides. 126 00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:33,640 Speaker 2: The big breakthrough was. 127 00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:39,679 Speaker 1: The eighteen fifty one invention of the Kelodean wet plate process, 128 00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:45,840 Speaker 1: using silver nitrate as a light sensitive medium, capturing an 129 00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:48,480 Speaker 1: image sensitive to varying light. 130 00:10:49,080 --> 00:10:50,360 Speaker 2: During the years of. 131 00:10:50,400 --> 00:10:55,120 Speaker 1: The earlier the gariotype photos had been accomplished with the 132 00:10:55,240 --> 00:11:00,640 Speaker 1: use of mercury and its attendant often fatal effects, so 133 00:11:00,679 --> 00:11:05,320 Speaker 1: silver nitrate was a big step forward. Silver nitrate glass 134 00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:11,199 Speaker 1: negatives yielded sharp and reproducible prints and fixed their exposures 135 00:11:11,240 --> 00:11:16,120 Speaker 1: remarkably quickly for the time, a well lit scene, usually 136 00:11:16,200 --> 00:11:21,800 Speaker 1: requiring only five seconds for a successful exposure. But let's 137 00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:26,079 Speaker 1: face it compared to your phone camera or a digital SLR. 138 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:31,320 Speaker 1: Photography using eight x ten glass plate negatives was a nightmare, 139 00:11:32,040 --> 00:11:34,679 Speaker 1: especially in a place like the Rocky Mountains or the 140 00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:39,760 Speaker 1: Yosemite canyons. The cameras were huge, weighing an average of 141 00:11:39,920 --> 00:11:45,240 Speaker 1: sixty pounds, plus another thirty pounds for the absolutely essential 142 00:11:45,440 --> 00:11:47,320 Speaker 1: tripod to hold it steady. 143 00:11:47,840 --> 00:11:49,640 Speaker 2: The gear so heavy it had to. 144 00:11:49,559 --> 00:11:53,120 Speaker 1: Be transported almost to the scene of any shoot in 145 00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:55,119 Speaker 1: a wagon or on the back. 146 00:11:54,880 --> 00:11:55,480 Speaker 2: Of a mule. 147 00:11:56,840 --> 00:11:59,839 Speaker 1: To shoot a single photo with equipment like this, you 148 00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:03,800 Speaker 1: first had to get the tripod mounted camera in position 149 00:12:04,320 --> 00:12:07,720 Speaker 1: to compose in its viewfinder the scene that had caught 150 00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:11,160 Speaker 1: your eye. Then, back at your wagon, you coated a 151 00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:14,400 Speaker 1: fragile glass plate the size of a sheet of typing 152 00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:18,640 Speaker 1: paper with kelodium potassium and dipped it in a bath 153 00:12:18,760 --> 00:12:22,640 Speaker 1: of silver nitrate. That meant you were ready to cover 154 00:12:22,840 --> 00:12:26,480 Speaker 1: the dripping glass plate to its edges with a black 155 00:12:26,559 --> 00:12:29,559 Speaker 1: cloth so you could carry it to the camera and 156 00:12:29,679 --> 00:12:34,360 Speaker 1: load it without stray light ruining the negative. Once it 157 00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:37,959 Speaker 1: was in place, you removed the lens cover and counted 158 00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:42,920 Speaker 1: down the exposure guessed at from experience. Then you replaced 159 00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:46,760 Speaker 1: the lens cover pulled out the glass plate, covered it again, 160 00:12:47,160 --> 00:12:49,839 Speaker 1: and hauled it back to your wagon dark room. 161 00:12:50,640 --> 00:12:52,440 Speaker 2: There you developed it in an. 162 00:12:52,360 --> 00:12:56,480 Speaker 1: Acid bath, sealed the image with a fixer, and washed 163 00:12:56,520 --> 00:13:00,560 Speaker 1: and dried the plate, all in one seamless motion. In 164 00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:03,200 Speaker 1: the amount of time it took a Timothy O'Sullivan to 165 00:13:03,320 --> 00:13:07,800 Speaker 1: take one landscape photograph, today you could fire off a 166 00:13:07,920 --> 00:13:11,760 Speaker 1: few hundred exposures with a phone you've carried to a 167 00:13:11,800 --> 00:13:15,680 Speaker 1: mountaintop in your shirt pocket, with no clumsy tripod to 168 00:13:15,760 --> 00:13:19,280 Speaker 1: weigh you down, our dark room chemicals to eat away 169 00:13:19,320 --> 00:13:23,360 Speaker 1: the skin on your fingers. But to their credit and 170 00:13:23,520 --> 00:13:29,800 Speaker 1: our gratitude, they did it. My bridge, O'Sullivan Jackson, along 171 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:35,520 Speaker 1: with Jack Hillers, Carlton Watkins, Alexander Gardner, A. J. Russell, 172 00:13:35,840 --> 00:13:39,160 Speaker 1: and a host of others less famous, roamed the West 173 00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:43,560 Speaker 1: independently or with the great surveys, seeking out the best scenery. 174 00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:46,720 Speaker 1: In terms of the scenes they looked for and the 175 00:13:46,720 --> 00:13:50,480 Speaker 1: compositions they framed in their viewfinders. Almost all of them 176 00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:56,520 Speaker 1: were strongly influenced by the landscape painters of the Romantic Age. 177 00:13:56,600 --> 00:13:59,400 Speaker 1: Their photographs often looked today as if they imagined the 178 00:13:59,480 --> 00:14:04,040 Speaker 1: landscape they saw hanging in gilded frames in the ante 179 00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:08,480 Speaker 1: room of some Gilded Age captain of industry. Yet their 180 00:14:08,520 --> 00:14:12,120 Speaker 1: photographs took over what had once been a function of art, 181 00:14:12,720 --> 00:14:16,480 Speaker 1: a record of factual landscape information. 182 00:14:16,640 --> 00:14:20,560 Speaker 2: At a level of detail few painters ever attempted. 183 00:14:21,400 --> 00:14:24,960 Speaker 1: What made the landscape photo such a marvel was that 184 00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:29,000 Speaker 1: it was, by a factor of magnitude, a more precise 185 00:14:29,320 --> 00:14:33,320 Speaker 1: visual rendering of place in a moment of time than 186 00:14:33,360 --> 00:14:38,480 Speaker 1: had ever been possible in human history until then. Here 187 00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:52,960 Speaker 1: was the West as it truly was. Because many of 188 00:14:52,960 --> 00:14:55,840 Speaker 1: you will be listening to this rather than seeing the 189 00:14:55,920 --> 00:15:00,520 Speaker 1: paired photographs on YouTube or Apple TV only to provide 190 00:15:00,560 --> 00:15:04,080 Speaker 1: some visual description, so it's possible to imagine the changes 191 00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:09,840 Speaker 1: in the West that repeat photography demonstrates so well. The 192 00:15:09,920 --> 00:15:13,680 Speaker 1: least surprising result of pairing photographs of the same scene 193 00:15:13,720 --> 00:15:16,480 Speaker 1: shot a century apart in the West, or indeed almost 194 00:15:16,560 --> 00:15:20,400 Speaker 1: anywhere else in America, is a record showing the growth 195 00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:24,160 Speaker 1: of the human built environment. In the book Second View, 196 00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:29,520 Speaker 1: modern photographers Gordon Beauchamp and Mark Klett commence with double 197 00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:34,240 Speaker 1: paired recent photos of a scene Timothy O'Sullivan's shot in 198 00:15:34,400 --> 00:15:38,840 Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine of the Wasatch Mountains and the few 199 00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:43,840 Speaker 1: score scattered houses that then made up Salt Lake City. 200 00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:47,840 Speaker 1: O'Sullivan had set up his camera in the foothills of 201 00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:50,840 Speaker 1: the Ochre Mountains to the west of the city, and 202 00:15:50,920 --> 00:15:56,000 Speaker 1: the white rectangles of the houses appeared tiny and overwhelmed 203 00:15:56,040 --> 00:16:02,160 Speaker 1: by a vast natural setting. By contrast, Gordon Bouchaw's nineteen 204 00:16:02,360 --> 00:16:06,320 Speaker 1: seventy eight photo of the exact scene shows a modern 205 00:16:06,520 --> 00:16:12,280 Speaker 1: urban setting, dense with planted trees and framing Mormon Temple Square, 206 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:17,640 Speaker 1: occupying a full third of the landscape in view. Interestingly, 207 00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:23,120 Speaker 1: even the foreground vegetation has now changed from bunch grasses 208 00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:26,880 Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty nine to what appears to be exotic 209 00:16:27,120 --> 00:16:32,280 Speaker 1: cheap grass in nineteen seventy eight. In Mark Klett's nineteen 210 00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:36,520 Speaker 1: ninety seven photo of this same scene, the city is 211 00:16:36,680 --> 00:16:42,040 Speaker 1: partly obscured by a mine tailings pile, and mining hardware 212 00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:46,280 Speaker 1: now occupies the foreground as the open pit of the 213 00:16:46,320 --> 00:16:51,280 Speaker 1: Bingham Canyon mine has spread into the scene. There are 214 00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:55,440 Speaker 1: plenty of these kind of expected changes across a century 215 00:16:55,840 --> 00:17:00,520 Speaker 1: in the books on Western repeat photography. In another second 216 00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:05,240 Speaker 1: view pairing the original is once again a Timothy O'Sullivan photograph, 217 00:17:05,600 --> 00:17:09,880 Speaker 1: this one taken in eighteen seventy two of the Horseshoe 218 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:14,000 Speaker 1: Bend of the Green River in present Utah. The exposure 219 00:17:14,040 --> 00:17:18,199 Speaker 1: from a high overlook called Flaming Gorge Ridge. 220 00:17:18,840 --> 00:17:23,560 Speaker 2: O'Sullivan's photo is a romantic age view of a sublime 221 00:17:23,840 --> 00:17:25,280 Speaker 2: Western wilderness. 222 00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:29,840 Speaker 1: The ue of the river frames both sides of a 223 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:33,840 Speaker 1: half grapefruit mountain in the upper middle. From where the 224 00:17:33,840 --> 00:17:38,920 Speaker 1: photographer stands, the country plunges dramatically from his feet down 225 00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:44,440 Speaker 1: to juniper speckled hills, with the intriguing Flaming Gorge angling 226 00:17:44,520 --> 00:17:48,040 Speaker 1: through the middle of the view far below. In Mark 227 00:17:48,119 --> 00:17:52,680 Speaker 1: Klett's nineteen seventy eight photo from the exact spot where 228 00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:57,440 Speaker 1: O'Sullivan stood one hundred and six years earlier, two thirds 229 00:17:57,480 --> 00:18:02,080 Speaker 1: of the same scene is now fit with the unruffled 230 00:18:02,119 --> 00:18:05,200 Speaker 1: waters of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. 231 00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:08,440 Speaker 2: Most of the half Grapefruit mountain in. 232 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:12,880 Speaker 1: The distance still stands above the waterline, but all the 233 00:18:12,920 --> 00:18:17,320 Speaker 1: wild lands below, including the Horseshoe Bend of the Green 234 00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:21,280 Speaker 1: and the Gorge that gave the place its name, now 235 00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:36,760 Speaker 1: lie underwater. So yes, change as expected, But the West 236 00:18:37,040 --> 00:18:40,840 Speaker 1: isn't so easy to predict. It's been a region of 237 00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:45,479 Speaker 1: mad cap resource extraction that often has no chance of 238 00:18:45,640 --> 00:18:50,760 Speaker 1: lasting an entire century. Among the stunning pairings in second 239 00:18:50,800 --> 00:18:55,720 Speaker 1: view are photos taken by O'Sullivan of the wholesale transformation 240 00:18:55,920 --> 00:19:00,520 Speaker 1: of the Nevada Desert by mining development in eighteen sixties 241 00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:01,560 Speaker 1: Virginia City. 242 00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:05,080 Speaker 2: When you see O'Sullivan's photo. 243 00:19:05,160 --> 00:19:09,400 Speaker 1: Of the elaborate buildings and smokestacks of a quartz mill 244 00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:14,120 Speaker 1: set among barren hills in eighteen sixty eight, you immediately 245 00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:18,240 Speaker 1: assume that the paired photo of the same setting, with 246 00:19:18,359 --> 00:19:21,760 Speaker 1: a stream bed and junipers on the hills but no 247 00:19:22,040 --> 00:19:26,400 Speaker 1: sign of mining activity at all, must be the prior 248 00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:32,240 Speaker 1: shot how the desert looked before Virginia City. Except it's not. 249 00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:37,439 Speaker 1: The second view here is Mark Klatt's photo of a 250 00:19:37,840 --> 00:19:42,720 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine Nevada desert where not even a trace 251 00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:47,359 Speaker 1: of the quartz mill remains and the wild has returned. 252 00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:53,120 Speaker 1: Repeat photographs like these make an optimistic point. With some 253 00:19:53,280 --> 00:19:59,160 Speaker 1: reclamation correction, even previously despoiled places in a region as 254 00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:03,480 Speaker 1: arid as the West can recover their health and time. 255 00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:10,480 Speaker 1: In the Southwest, particularly in Arizona and southern Colorado, pared 256 00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:14,040 Speaker 1: photographs taking a century or more apart also tell us 257 00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:21,040 Speaker 1: a little something about geologic time, assuming that photographic documentars 258 00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:25,160 Speaker 1: among us will still be doing repeat photography a few 259 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:29,360 Speaker 1: centuries down the line from now. Parent photos then are 260 00:20:29,600 --> 00:20:33,960 Speaker 1: likely to be more informative about geologic change, since this 261 00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:39,040 Speaker 1: at least usually is landscape progression that happens much more 262 00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:45,040 Speaker 1: slowly than human built environments or ecological change. William Henry 263 00:20:45,119 --> 00:20:51,560 Speaker 1: Jackson's eighteen seventy three photographs of rock hoodoos in southern Colorado, 264 00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:55,960 Speaker 1: matched with Joe Ann Weberg's nineteen seventy seven shots of 265 00:20:56,080 --> 00:21:01,720 Speaker 1: the same formation, shows that sandstone pedestals can be the 266 00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:07,480 Speaker 1: geologic decorations of a moment, with once present hoodoos now 267 00:21:07,680 --> 00:21:11,919 Speaker 1: missing or broken off halfway up, with the passage of 268 00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:16,439 Speaker 1: only a century. On the other hand, the vertical slick 269 00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:21,040 Speaker 1: rock walls of Mark Klett's Canyon de Che don't look 270 00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:25,320 Speaker 1: at all different in nineteen seventy eight than when O'Sullivan 271 00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:30,800 Speaker 1: first photographed them in eighteen seventy three. Only the vegetation 272 00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:36,880 Speaker 1: growth along the canyon bottom's intermittent stream has changed, which 273 00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:39,240 Speaker 1: is a way of introducing one of the most dramatic 274 00:21:39,359 --> 00:21:43,320 Speaker 1: and at first glanced, puzzling differences in the look of 275 00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:46,040 Speaker 1: the Old West and the New One. 276 00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:48,400 Speaker 2: As revealed by repeat photography. 277 00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:52,800 Speaker 1: The natural sciences have convincingly shown us by now that 278 00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:57,160 Speaker 1: there really is no such thing as a climax condition 279 00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:02,040 Speaker 1: when it comes to nature trees, and vegetation in particular, 280 00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:06,800 Speaker 1: the natural world is a constantly moving target. It does 281 00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:10,560 Speaker 1: not require a great deal of climatic variation to vary 282 00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:15,440 Speaker 1: plant growth from grasslands to forests, or to turn grasslands 283 00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:19,840 Speaker 1: into desert. The ecologies that exist in any particular place 284 00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:23,719 Speaker 1: at any particular moment in time depend on a host 285 00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:28,960 Speaker 1: of other factors too, Beyond climate. Two truly significant ones 286 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:31,760 Speaker 1: for the American West a century or more ago were 287 00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:36,879 Speaker 1: the presence or absence of particular species of wildlife and 288 00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:41,320 Speaker 1: the degree to which the ancient human inhabitants were managing 289 00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:44,119 Speaker 1: their world and influencing. 290 00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:45,719 Speaker 2: Ecological processes. 291 00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:54,600 Speaker 1: To see one of the most unanticipated changes in the 292 00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:58,840 Speaker 1: Western landscape. Two of the other photographic studies I mentioned earlier, 293 00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:03,280 Speaker 1: Yellowstone and the Biology of Time and the Colorado Front 294 00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:07,080 Speaker 1: Range a Century of Ecological Change, offer up some of 295 00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:13,600 Speaker 1: our most revealing repeat photography matches. The mountainous Front Range 296 00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:17,399 Speaker 1: of the Colorado Rockies is an outstanding place to start. 297 00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:22,400 Speaker 1: Let's begin with a nineteen twenty one photograph of rams 298 00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:27,240 Speaker 1: Head Mountain shot by W. T. Lee, matched up with 299 00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:31,680 Speaker 1: a nineteen eighty six photo taken in the exact spot 300 00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:32,679 Speaker 1: by T. T. 301 00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:36,320 Speaker 2: Veblin and D. C. Lorenz True. 302 00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:40,840 Speaker 1: Across the sixty five years between these two photographs, the 303 00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:44,600 Speaker 1: small lake at the foot of the mountain has become 304 00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:50,320 Speaker 1: a much larger reservoir and anticipated change. But it's the 305 00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:55,600 Speaker 1: tremendous difference in the coverage of Ponderosa pine trees, both 306 00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,840 Speaker 1: on the foreground hills and on the main mountain. 307 00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:01,320 Speaker 2: That requires a take. Here. 308 00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:06,760 Speaker 1: In just six decades, the number of Ponderosa pines. 309 00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:08,760 Speaker 2: Has easily quadrupled. 310 00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:13,720 Speaker 1: That same change from a far more open west as 311 00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:18,560 Speaker 1: far back as photographs exist, to a significantly more densely 312 00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:23,920 Speaker 1: forest one in our time exists to marvel over everywhere 313 00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:28,680 Speaker 1: repeat photography has been done in the region. Compare William 314 00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:32,800 Speaker 1: Henry Jackson's eighteen seventy two photograph of the Grand Canyon 315 00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:37,760 Speaker 1: of the Yellowstone with Kletts and bouchaws nineteen seventy eight 316 00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:42,359 Speaker 1: photo of that scene where tree growth nearly obscures the view, 317 00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:48,359 Speaker 1: and this ecological change is evident in Yellowstone two. It's 318 00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:53,560 Speaker 1: everywhere apparent in Colorado. An eighteen ninety nine photo of 319 00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:57,879 Speaker 1: the Red Hill Valley northwest of Boulder shows a beautifully 320 00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:02,439 Speaker 1: grass valley swale with the mere sprinkling of pines on 321 00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:07,560 Speaker 1: the slopes. The matching nineteen eighty four photo y Veblin 322 00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:11,439 Speaker 1: and Lorentz shows a dirt road and houses and a 323 00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:15,680 Speaker 1: landscape where the number of pine trees has easily increased 324 00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:20,200 Speaker 1: by a factor of magnitude. Same thing with left hand 325 00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:24,040 Speaker 1: canyon on the front range. An unknown photographer shot a 326 00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:27,399 Speaker 1: scene of this mountain drainage in nineteen hundred that shows 327 00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:33,400 Speaker 1: a landscape that's roughly sixty percent grassland forty percent scattered 328 00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:39,680 Speaker 1: pines with unforested peaks. In the Veblin Lorentz match from 329 00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:43,199 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, grassland. 330 00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:44,120 Speaker 2: Is all but invisible. 331 00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:49,280 Speaker 1: Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs have increased by several times 332 00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:54,800 Speaker 1: over and now blanket the formerly open mountaintops. A forest 333 00:25:54,840 --> 00:26:07,960 Speaker 1: takeover ecologist believe commenced sometime in the eighteen ninety Since 334 00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:11,760 Speaker 1: this is the story almost everywhere in the West and 335 00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:18,120 Speaker 1: in several different ecological zones, including lower elevation pinion juniper 336 00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:24,560 Speaker 1: country and even planes grasslands increasingly invaded by junipers and mesquites. 337 00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:30,480 Speaker 1: This is a significant change that obviously begs explanation, and 338 00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:34,400 Speaker 1: the why questions have to be directed time wise in 339 00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:39,679 Speaker 1: both directions. First, why do our oldest photographs show a 340 00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:43,000 Speaker 1: West that looked the way it did? Why was the 341 00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,879 Speaker 1: West from nineteen hundred and on earlier in time so 342 00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:51,440 Speaker 1: much more open, with much more grassland and far fewer trees. 343 00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:57,640 Speaker 1: The ready answer, of course is fire. As a mostly 344 00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:02,680 Speaker 1: arid and windy region characterized by summer thunderstorms that readily 345 00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:07,960 Speaker 1: produced lightning strike ignitions, most of the West burned easily, 346 00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,000 Speaker 1: and did so repeatedly and regularly. 347 00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:13,879 Speaker 2: Its ecologies, in fact. 348 00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:18,040 Speaker 1: Had long been fire adapted, accounting for the many stories 349 00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:22,480 Speaker 1: by early observers of open forests with little underbrush or 350 00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:28,360 Speaker 1: young saplings, but instead towering colonnades of old growth ponderosas 351 00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:32,320 Speaker 1: so limbed up by ground fires that they had almost 352 00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:38,640 Speaker 1: become fire resistant. Photos of open landscapes are also evidence, 353 00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:43,320 Speaker 1: many ecologists are now arguing for a very long history 354 00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:48,280 Speaker 1: of native fire ecology in the West. Indian people burned 355 00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:53,560 Speaker 1: their landscapes to affect beneficial outcomes for them. Fires opened 356 00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:57,760 Speaker 1: up the country for seeing and for travel. Fires beat 357 00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:01,320 Speaker 1: back the spread of shrubs like saul as brush, whose 358 00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:06,040 Speaker 1: oils make it highly susceptible to death by flames, clearing 359 00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:11,400 Speaker 1: the country for grasses that elk and horses preferred. Fires 360 00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:15,120 Speaker 1: promoted berry patches and opened the ground to be able 361 00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:19,240 Speaker 1: to spot snakes. Because grazers like bison or elk preferred 362 00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,480 Speaker 1: the green grasses that sprouted in the wake of autumn burns, 363 00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:28,800 Speaker 1: fires created predictable destinations for drawing in huntable wildlife as 364 00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:33,440 Speaker 1: winters wound down. In fact, we still call the calm 365 00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:38,880 Speaker 1: often smoked hazy days in the autumn Indian summer, because 366 00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,320 Speaker 1: this was the season when native people tended to burn 367 00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:46,120 Speaker 1: the most. During the second half of the nineteenth century, 368 00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,880 Speaker 1: the man who knew more about the West than anyone 369 00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:53,720 Speaker 1: else was John Wesley Powell. Powell wrote that the recurring 370 00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:57,000 Speaker 1: threat to the mountain forests of the West was fire, 371 00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,960 Speaker 1: and in his opinion, the best way to redress that 372 00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:05,720 Speaker 1: threat was to remove Indians to reservations where their agents 373 00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:11,760 Speaker 1: could prevent them from firing the western landscape during dry seasons, 374 00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:19,600 Speaker 1: while removing Native people from their ancient ecological management of 375 00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:22,680 Speaker 1: the West would have been an important reason why the 376 00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,120 Speaker 1: West took on a new look after nineteen hundred. There 377 00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:32,000 Speaker 1: were other contributors to that sea change, usually through carelessness 378 00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:37,560 Speaker 1: rather than intent. Western settlers also contributed to widespread burns. 379 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:42,280 Speaker 1: One of the most devastating wildfires ever recorded in the West, 380 00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:47,120 Speaker 1: a conflagration known as the Big Blow Up, swept out 381 00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:52,000 Speaker 1: of Washington State across Idaho and Montana in the summer 382 00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:57,040 Speaker 1: of nineteen ten. It lit up more than three million acres, 383 00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:02,680 Speaker 1: inflicting wholesale destruction on entire towns, and killed eighty seven 384 00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:08,600 Speaker 1: people in its aftermath. The new US Forest Service adopted 385 00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:13,600 Speaker 1: a very aggressive fire suppression policy that influenced forest policy 386 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,400 Speaker 1: and the look of the West for the next century. 387 00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:22,280 Speaker 1: So now absent the fires that for centuries had kept 388 00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:27,480 Speaker 1: Western landscapes grassier and more open, with forests of scattered 389 00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:31,120 Speaker 1: old growth, fire suppression began to produce a version of 390 00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:34,280 Speaker 1: the West that appears in the most recent of the 391 00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:40,280 Speaker 1: matched repeat photographs. A thick aggregation of spreading shrubs plus 392 00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:45,520 Speaker 1: seas of sprouting saplings, once taken out by low intensity fires, 393 00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:51,440 Speaker 1: now spread across plains, foothills, and mountains ironically creating the 394 00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:57,640 Speaker 1: conditions for the destructive crown fires of our own time. Meanwhile, 395 00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:01,280 Speaker 1: a new abundance of Douglas fir needles has built up 396 00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:06,840 Speaker 1: spruce budworm numbers until they too have begun ravaging mountain 397 00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:12,200 Speaker 1: forests in the foothills. Denser pinion pine forests similarly became 398 00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:16,520 Speaker 1: targets of an epidemic of pine bark beetles that killed 399 00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:21,360 Speaker 1: forty five million trees in the Southwest in the first. 400 00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:22,520 Speaker 2: Years of this century. 401 00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:28,640 Speaker 1: Stories like these are the accompaniment to second view photographs 402 00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:33,440 Speaker 1: of a far greener West that replaced what O'Sullivan and 403 00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:43,760 Speaker 1: Jackson once saw. The photo book Yellowstone and the Biology 404 00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:48,240 Speaker 1: of Time offers us yet another and actually very different 405 00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,920 Speaker 1: take on the changed ecology of the West in the 406 00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:56,160 Speaker 1: past one hundred and fifty years. This change points towards 407 00:31:56,200 --> 00:32:04,000 Speaker 1: a set of unintended ecological consequences from apparently changed wildlife 408 00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:09,280 Speaker 1: dynamics in the West. When he was on the Yellowstone 409 00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:13,520 Speaker 1: Plateau in eighteen seventy one, William Henry Jackson took a 410 00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:18,920 Speaker 1: photo of the Soda Butte floodplane wending through the future 411 00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:23,440 Speaker 1: National Park, both in the foreground and farther along the 412 00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:30,200 Speaker 1: stream beneath the Butte. Native willows appear flourishing along the 413 00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:35,120 Speaker 1: edges of the stream bed. One hundred and nineteen years later, 414 00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:41,360 Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety, photographer D. B. Houston took a repeat 415 00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:46,520 Speaker 1: photograph of the same scene. There is not a single 416 00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:52,440 Speaker 1: willow of any size anywhere along the Soda Butte floodplane 417 00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:58,120 Speaker 1: in his nineteen ninety photo. That matched set of photographs 418 00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,360 Speaker 1: takes us into the heart of controversy. 419 00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:03,200 Speaker 2: The year Houston took. 420 00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:07,640 Speaker 1: His photo was five years prior to the reintroduction of 421 00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:11,920 Speaker 1: gray wolves into Yellowstone under the recovery mandate of the 422 00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:16,040 Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act. Wolves have been gone from the park 423 00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:21,160 Speaker 1: since nineteen twenty six, deliberately removed as part of America's 424 00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:23,440 Speaker 1: war on predators. 425 00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:25,320 Speaker 2: In their absence, by. 426 00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:30,440 Speaker 1: The nineteen nineties, an estimated twenty five to thirty one 427 00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:36,640 Speaker 1: thousand elk were summering in the park. Judging from photographic 428 00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:41,840 Speaker 1: and other evidence. Across that same time span, roughly nineteen 429 00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:46,560 Speaker 1: thirty to nineteen ninety, at least fifty percent of all 430 00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:52,800 Speaker 1: the willows and young aspen stands in Yellowstone disappeared. The 431 00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:57,280 Speaker 1: relationship between the sixty year absence of a top of 432 00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:01,480 Speaker 1: the food chain predator. Like the gray wolf and burgeoning 433 00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:06,880 Speaker 1: elk urgeon Yellowstone is by now a generally accepted ecological 434 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:11,279 Speaker 1: cause and effect, so is the elk's attraction to the 435 00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:13,840 Speaker 1: young shoots of deciduous. 436 00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:17,520 Speaker 2: Willows and aspens. In a later episode, I'll take up. 437 00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:21,880 Speaker 1: The popularization of a controversial conclusion that the return of 438 00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:25,160 Speaker 1: gray wolves to Yellowstone has since set off a chain 439 00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:30,440 Speaker 1: reaction marked by aspen, willow and other ecological recoveries. 440 00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:33,000 Speaker 2: But for this part of the story. 441 00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,200 Speaker 1: The differences in the paired photos of the soda butte 442 00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:41,440 Speaker 1: draintings between eighteen seventy one and nineteen ninety would seem 443 00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:46,160 Speaker 1: to have a straightforward explanation, Although there certainly may have 444 00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:52,000 Speaker 1: been other contributing circumstances. Wolves and elk are likely players 445 00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:55,680 Speaker 1: in a different looking West across that span of time. 446 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:04,359 Speaker 1: And now let's proceed to yet one additional repeat photography 447 00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,840 Speaker 1: project that also seems to go to the very heart 448 00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:11,800 Speaker 1: of a political battle about a changed and changing West 449 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:17,880 Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven, sensitive to an increasingly fluctuating Western 450 00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:22,200 Speaker 1: climate and to arguments by climatologists that carbon released in 451 00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:26,120 Speaker 1: the Earth's atmosphere by the two centuries of burning fossil 452 00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:32,520 Speaker 1: fuels was instrumental in those wild fluctuations. The US Geological 453 00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:36,799 Speaker 1: Survey and the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center hatched the 454 00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:41,839 Speaker 1: idea of doing a repeat photography project on the glaciers 455 00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:48,120 Speaker 1: of Glacier National Park, Montana, established in nineteen ten at 456 00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:52,640 Speaker 1: the urging of conservation is like George Byrd Grennell and 457 00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:58,680 Speaker 1: University of Montana biologist Morton J. Elrod, Glacier National Park, 458 00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:03,560 Speaker 1: high against the border of Alberta, Canada, was a wonderland 459 00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:10,240 Speaker 1: of peaks, snowfields, and glaciers. When Glacier joined America's crown 460 00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:16,000 Speaker 1: jewel Western Parks, there were eighty named glaciers within its boundaries. 461 00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:23,080 Speaker 1: Finally completed in twenty nineteen, the Glacier Repeat Photography Project 462 00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:28,560 Speaker 1: assembled the same kind of scientific pairing of photos originally 463 00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:34,440 Speaker 1: laid out in the USGS's Second View. In Glacier Parks case, 464 00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:39,640 Speaker 1: the baseline photos were more recent, shot from eighteen eighty 465 00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:45,040 Speaker 1: seven to nineteen forty three, while selected photographers shot the 466 00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:49,760 Speaker 1: paired modern photos from nineteen ninety seven to twenty nineteen. 467 00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:55,279 Speaker 1: As with Second View, extreme care went into shooting in 468 00:36:55,400 --> 00:37:00,000 Speaker 1: precisely the same location as historic photos, as well as 469 00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:02,920 Speaker 1: at the same time of day and same time of 470 00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:11,480 Speaker 1: the year. The most famous glacier in the park has 471 00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:16,759 Speaker 1: always been Grenell Glacier, one of the true ice giants 472 00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:20,960 Speaker 1: of the Northern Rockies. When Grenell Glacier was photographed in 473 00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:26,319 Speaker 1: nineteen ten by Morton Elrod, its thick glacial ice blanketed 474 00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:31,400 Speaker 1: two thirds of l Rod's photo, from the garden wall 475 00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:34,440 Speaker 1: ridge on the right side of the photo all the 476 00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:38,960 Speaker 1: way across to the scene's left edge. An immense glacier 477 00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:43,439 Speaker 1: lapped at the foot of Mount Gould in nineteen ten, 478 00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:49,759 Speaker 1: only the mountain's vertical walls stood clear of ice. In 479 00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:55,960 Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, photographer L McKeon of the USGS repeated l 480 00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:59,720 Speaker 1: Rod's shot from one hundred and six years earlier. 481 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,160 Speaker 2: The change is jaw dropping. 482 00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,759 Speaker 1: By twenty sixteen, Grenell Glacier took up no more than 483 00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:14,200 Speaker 1: twenty percent of a scene it once entirely dominated. Where 484 00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,680 Speaker 1: the bulk of the eyes had once rested had now 485 00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:20,440 Speaker 1: become a glacial cirque lake at the foot. 486 00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:20,960 Speaker 2: Of Mount Gould. 487 00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,480 Speaker 1: The staggering shrinkage of this famous park glacier in a 488 00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:29,200 Speaker 1: bit more than a century had in fact now split 489 00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:34,240 Speaker 1: Grenelle into two ice remnants, a former piece of Grenell 490 00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:38,160 Speaker 1: now hanging onto Garden Wall Ridge, and the right of 491 00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:44,800 Speaker 1: the scene is today called Salamander Glacier. The National Park's 492 00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:49,160 Speaker 1: Boulder Glacier was also photographed by el Rod in nineteen ten, 493 00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:54,000 Speaker 1: at which time it dreat cape like across thirty percent 494 00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:59,000 Speaker 1: of el Rod's composition of the park's Livingston Range. When 495 00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:04,320 Speaker 1: USGS photographers located l Rod's perch and repeated his shot 496 00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:10,240 Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, Boulder Glacier essentially no longer existed. 497 00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:15,320 Speaker 1: What had once been an impressive glacier scores of feet 498 00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:19,520 Speaker 1: thick and stretching across a quarter mile of mountain had 499 00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:25,279 Speaker 1: fractured into a few minor snowfields below Boulder Peak, with 500 00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:30,160 Speaker 1: snow and ice now occupying less than five percent of 501 00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:34,920 Speaker 1: the scene. By twenty nineteen, glaciers in the park had 502 00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:39,800 Speaker 1: been melting so rapidly that only twenty six of them 503 00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:46,759 Speaker 1: now still merit official glacier designation. The causes of the 504 00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:51,440 Speaker 1: remarkable disappearing glaciers of the West Glacier National Park are 505 00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:57,160 Speaker 1: of course invisible impaired repeat photographs, and the same is 506 00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:02,200 Speaker 1: true of this kind of evidence general. Repeat photographs that 507 00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:06,680 Speaker 1: show us glaciers or none, or forests where there were 508 00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:10,799 Speaker 1: once grasslands merely tell us that the West we now 509 00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:14,719 Speaker 1: live in or visit is a very different world than 510 00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:17,560 Speaker 1: the West that occupied this same space on the ground 511 00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,600 Speaker 1: one hundred or one hundred and fifty years ago. In 512 00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:26,920 Speaker 1: that respect, repeat photography is pretty much like historical evidence 513 00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:31,279 Speaker 1: of all kinds. History teaches us the lesson that the 514 00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:34,759 Speaker 1: world is now different than it was, and that it's 515 00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:36,240 Speaker 1: still changing as we look. 516 00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,640 Speaker 2: It's up to our science and our. 517 00:40:39,640 --> 00:41:00,080 Speaker 1: Analytical primate brains to explain and grapple with the reasons why. 518 00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:02,120 Speaker 2: So. 519 00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:07,200 Speaker 3: Dan, in this episode, you talk about the practice of 520 00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:09,280 Speaker 3: repeat photography. 521 00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:10,280 Speaker 2: And. 522 00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:17,840 Speaker 3: Whenever that whenever this subject comes up, it like lights 523 00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:20,719 Speaker 3: up something in my brain because I immediately think back to 524 00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,879 Speaker 3: other books I've looked at, or at a historical site, 525 00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:27,600 Speaker 3: they'll have two photographs or even just one that you 526 00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:30,320 Speaker 3: can compare to the landscape that you're looking at. Yeah, 527 00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:35,920 Speaker 3: and it's something that's very accessible for the general public 528 00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:40,120 Speaker 3: to think about historical change, even like kids can pick 529 00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,160 Speaker 3: it up. You know, you're looking at two different images, 530 00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:43,600 Speaker 3: But I wonder if you can just sort of speak 531 00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:49,040 Speaker 3: to why this is such a compelling exercise in looking 532 00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:54,080 Speaker 3: at two of the same viewpoints from different errors in time. 533 00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:59,120 Speaker 1: Well, as you suggest, Randall, it's in a way, it's 534 00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:05,160 Speaker 1: as if two photographs side by side is the quickest 535 00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:09,600 Speaker 1: and easiest way to see change. You know what, in 536 00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:16,080 Speaker 1: studying history, we're always fascinated with the momentum of change 537 00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:21,160 Speaker 1: over time and photographs somehow, because I mean, for one thing, 538 00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:25,200 Speaker 1: we always assume a photograph cannot lie, is telling the truth. 539 00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:29,640 Speaker 1: Of course, photographers realize very well that you manipulate photographs 540 00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:31,560 Speaker 1: in all kinds of ways to make them say what 541 00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:35,440 Speaker 1: you want. But on the other hand, I think that 542 00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:43,200 Speaker 1: simple ability to visualize two different versions of the same 543 00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,560 Speaker 1: the same look, the same thing that you're you're gazing at, 544 00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:51,280 Speaker 1: is a pretty powerful way of getting it at evidence 545 00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:53,839 Speaker 1: of change. And you know, we one of the great 546 00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:58,000 Speaker 1: things about repeat photography is that, I mean, we have 547 00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:02,440 Speaker 1: not had the ability to do anything like this except 548 00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:05,359 Speaker 1: for one hundred and fifty or so years. I mean, 549 00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:09,080 Speaker 1: photography only dates back to the eighteen forties, and you 550 00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:11,480 Speaker 1: don't really get images that are good enough to do 551 00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:17,040 Speaker 1: something like repeat photography comparisons until this period. That I 552 00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:22,200 Speaker 1: talk about in the episode where in the eighteen sixties 553 00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:25,600 Speaker 1: and eighteen seventies, these photographers who are getting hired by 554 00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:29,320 Speaker 1: the Great Surveys to go out and explore the West 555 00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:33,040 Speaker 1: and photograph all the best scenes. They're taking cameras that 556 00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:37,680 Speaker 1: are capable of reproducing photographs that are good enough for 557 00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,920 Speaker 1: us to actually see what the West really look like. 558 00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:43,919 Speaker 1: It's a powerful thing. 559 00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:44,480 Speaker 2: I mean I. 560 00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:49,200 Speaker 1: Do, and I think you know they're probably I'm certainly 561 00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:50,880 Speaker 1: not the only person out there who does this, but 562 00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:55,600 Speaker 1: I do repeat photography myself on my own pieces of ground, 563 00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:58,880 Speaker 1: or on particular landscapes that I've been fascinated with for 564 00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:02,440 Speaker 1: a long time. I'll pick out a spot at a 565 00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:06,200 Speaker 1: time of year where I'll shoot a photograph of this 566 00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:09,920 Speaker 1: particular setting, and I go back year after year and 567 00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:12,080 Speaker 1: do it. And of course, when you're doing it over 568 00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:14,439 Speaker 1: a span of just a few years, you don't see 569 00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:18,120 Speaker 1: change like you do. And these spans from the eighteen 570 00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:22,080 Speaker 1: seventies to the nineteen nineties or something, right. 571 00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:25,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, that was actually my next question was have you 572 00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:28,520 Speaker 3: dabbled in this? And I've given your background in photography, 573 00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:31,719 Speaker 3: I was guessing that you had, Oh yeah, one of 574 00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:36,040 Speaker 3: the I guess as I was reading this and just 575 00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:43,680 Speaker 3: thinking about the subject of repeat photography. Initially, maybe it's 576 00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:46,680 Speaker 3: just because we're in the West and this is a 577 00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:50,919 Speaker 3: very powerful and repetitive refrain. But initially I was just thinking, well, 578 00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:59,800 Speaker 3: obviously repeat photography shows decline, right like landscapes get developed, 579 00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:06,759 Speaker 3: vegetation disappears. But I think in this chapter you use 580 00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:11,919 Speaker 3: a lot of sort of counterpoint examples to demonstrate that 581 00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:13,560 Speaker 3: change is much more. 582 00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:16,680 Speaker 2: Maybe fluid. 583 00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:19,360 Speaker 3: You use the example of Salt Lake building up and 584 00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:22,640 Speaker 3: at the same time a mine, a mining town disappearing, 585 00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:25,840 Speaker 3: and so there's not always the change that you expect 586 00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:27,080 Speaker 3: in these photographs. 587 00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:29,759 Speaker 1: Now there's not, and that's one of the fascinating things 588 00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:32,759 Speaker 1: to me about them. I mean, you're right, what we 589 00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,960 Speaker 1: always expect is that, Okay, over time, everything is getting 590 00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:38,160 Speaker 1: more built up. There are more people, there are more roads, 591 00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:43,440 Speaker 1: more cities are going to spread. And that sequence of 592 00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:47,600 Speaker 1: photographs of Salt Lake from the eighteen seventies through the 593 00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:52,319 Speaker 1: nineteen nineties is very much that each one. I mean 594 00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,800 Speaker 1: though the last two photographs are only about twelve years apart, 595 00:45:56,239 --> 00:46:01,200 Speaker 1: and yet the Bingham Canyon mine has intruded on the scene. 596 00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:03,799 Speaker 1: Just in that short space of time, and that's what 597 00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:08,000 Speaker 1: we expect. But I was really kind of struck by 598 00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:12,719 Speaker 1: and charmed by the fact that we have repeat photographs 599 00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:18,440 Speaker 1: of Virginia City, Nevada and the quartz mill site there 600 00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:23,880 Speaker 1: back in the eighteen seventies that you look at it today. 601 00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:26,440 Speaker 1: And I can recall very vividly the first time I 602 00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:30,560 Speaker 1: flipped open the pages of Second View that USGS sponsored 603 00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:37,440 Speaker 1: repeat photography project and saw these two images side by side. 604 00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:41,480 Speaker 1: My mind told me the one that looks like a 605 00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:46,080 Speaker 1: completely natural scene with no evidence of human manipulation in 606 00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:49,560 Speaker 1: it is the original one. And it turned out, in fact, 607 00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,759 Speaker 1: it's the opposite. It's the one that has been reclaimed 608 00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,360 Speaker 1: and restored. And as I said, that's kind of cause 609 00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:57,920 Speaker 1: for optimism in a way, because in some of these 610 00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:01,920 Speaker 1: landscapes that you see today, where there are mind tailings, 611 00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:06,879 Speaker 1: piles and all sorts of disturbance, it looks as if 612 00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:12,160 Speaker 1: there actually is a possibility to return and rewild the 613 00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:14,680 Speaker 1: landscape to something that it originally looked like. 614 00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:18,279 Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's I think when people use the expression 615 00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:22,880 Speaker 3: you can see history on the landscape, it often refers 616 00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:26,120 Speaker 3: to human presence on the landscape. 617 00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:26,360 Speaker 2: But in. 618 00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,680 Speaker 3: Some instances, in a lot of instances, history on the 619 00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:35,520 Speaker 3: landscape might be legible in the absence of development, right, 620 00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:39,320 Speaker 3: Like I was thinking about wilderness area, I was thinking 621 00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:42,279 Speaker 3: my thinking jumped around a lot. I was reading this, 622 00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:44,480 Speaker 3: but I was thinking about how when you look at 623 00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:49,360 Speaker 3: these photographs you can see change or continuity, but there's 624 00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:55,880 Speaker 3: no underlying explanatory framework, right, so it sort of keys 625 00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:58,960 Speaker 3: you to historical change but doesn't actually explain any of it. 626 00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,680 Speaker 3: And I was thinking about some of the things that, like, 627 00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:06,680 Speaker 3: you won't see values changing in these photographs, but in 628 00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:08,600 Speaker 3: some ways you can, because if you look at like 629 00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:12,479 Speaker 3: a wilderness area or some you know, a mill site 630 00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:16,040 Speaker 3: that's been converted into a park outside of Missoula, you 631 00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:19,440 Speaker 3: are seeing those values. You have to have the context 632 00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:22,600 Speaker 3: to know that that's what's happening. But it's like a 633 00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:29,120 Speaker 3: very powerful demonstration or evidence of historical change without that 634 00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:31,480 Speaker 3: underlying human framework. 635 00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:35,360 Speaker 1: Yeah, without the analysis or the explanation, And which is 636 00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:37,960 Speaker 1: sort of where I took the script. At the very end, 637 00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:41,840 Speaker 1: I wanted people who listened to this and who particularly 638 00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:49,640 Speaker 1: who saw these images to realize that they don't come 639 00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:54,680 Speaker 1: with an explanation. What you're seeing is the raw evidence 640 00:48:54,840 --> 00:49:00,319 Speaker 1: of change, but it requires another step or a or 641 00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:05,200 Speaker 1: more than likely another sequence of steps to disentangle what 642 00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:10,000 Speaker 1: has actually happened here. Why you're seeing a West that 643 00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,480 Speaker 1: looks like this in the eighteen seventies or eighteen eighties, 644 00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:16,200 Speaker 1: and one one hundred years later that looks a completely 645 00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:20,080 Speaker 1: different way. And the one that I think sort of 646 00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:23,400 Speaker 1: caught me the most by surprise when I first started 647 00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:32,040 Speaker 1: looking at repeat photography was the evidence of a much 648 00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:39,200 Speaker 1: more open, less forested West in the nineteenth century than today. 649 00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:42,400 Speaker 1: And I think the reason was because I probably came 650 00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:46,960 Speaker 1: at those parrot images initially with the notion that, Okay, 651 00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:49,319 Speaker 1: in our own time, we're obviously we're building a lot 652 00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:53,720 Speaker 1: of housing where cutting down trees for all sorts of reasons. 653 00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:57,160 Speaker 1: Surely there are far fewer trees now than there once were. 654 00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:01,799 Speaker 1: The West must have had initially really dance beautiful force, 655 00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:05,520 Speaker 1: and what you see in those images is the exact 656 00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:10,839 Speaker 1: opposite of that. And again, without any explanation, you have 657 00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:14,560 Speaker 1: to start taking that next step in your mind and 658 00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:17,680 Speaker 1: figuring out with some kind of thought bubble. Okay, so 659 00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:23,239 Speaker 1: here's why that must be that way, and it it what. 660 00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:27,359 Speaker 3: I thought of when I read that was the it's 661 00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:30,880 Speaker 3: sort of the opposite of what you would intuit. Similar 662 00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:35,040 Speaker 3: types of photographs would show east of the Mississippi, because 663 00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:39,200 Speaker 3: the most obvious answer is what happens when people when 664 00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:42,279 Speaker 3: when European your American people get to a place, is oh, 665 00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:45,920 Speaker 3: deforestation happens, right, But then you think back and there 666 00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:50,560 Speaker 3: are also these descriptions of these big eastern grasslands, and it, 667 00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:53,719 Speaker 3: I mean, this is just sort of a sprawling thought, 668 00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:58,040 Speaker 3: but it brings you back to these early European accounts 669 00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:01,840 Speaker 3: of American contact, and you just get a glimpse or 670 00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:05,640 Speaker 3: a snapshot through written description of what the landscape looked 671 00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:07,880 Speaker 3: like then, and then you get another one one hundred 672 00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:09,840 Speaker 3: years later, and you have to sort of piece together 673 00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:12,279 Speaker 3: how you reconcile the two. 674 00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:15,360 Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's harder to do with written descriptions because 675 00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:20,520 Speaker 1: you know, you, for one thing, repeat photography as it's 676 00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:25,040 Speaker 1: being done scientifically by the United States Geological Survey, for example, 677 00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:29,439 Speaker 1: they have a kind of a scientific methodology where what 678 00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:33,319 Speaker 1: you do is you not only go back on the day, 679 00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:36,840 Speaker 1: the same day of the year, same day of the month, 680 00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:41,200 Speaker 1: same time of day, and try to reshoot the shot. 681 00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:46,080 Speaker 1: They actually worked out in second view of a kind 682 00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:50,799 Speaker 1: of a geometric mechanism for putting the camera lens in 683 00:51:50,920 --> 00:51:56,799 Speaker 1: exactly the same place. With written descriptions, I mean, you're 684 00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:00,640 Speaker 1: a long way from that kind of precision. Somebody maybe 685 00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:04,160 Speaker 1: describing what a scene looks like that's fifteen miles away 686 00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:07,960 Speaker 1: another time of year, and so it doesn't doesn't carry 687 00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:11,200 Speaker 1: with it that kind of precision that doing something like 688 00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:14,279 Speaker 1: repeat photography in this scientific way does, right. 689 00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:17,799 Speaker 3: Yeah, I was thinking about the you know, some of 690 00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:22,879 Speaker 3: the early Spanish expeditions where someone says, oh, we're here, 691 00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:26,920 Speaker 3: and there's these towns full of people and these civilizations, 692 00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:29,600 Speaker 3: and then a late one hundred years later, someone else 693 00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:32,359 Speaker 3: comes through and it's empty, and it's sort of an 694 00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:37,080 Speaker 3: interesting parallel to the Nevada mining town, right, And it's 695 00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:40,919 Speaker 3: like history doesn't only move in one direction. Yeah, that's 696 00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:41,719 Speaker 3: exactly right. 697 00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:45,240 Speaker 1: And yeah, that I think you're probably remembering the Cobza 698 00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:49,759 Speaker 1: Devaka account that we were talking about a few episodes ago, 699 00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:53,960 Speaker 1: where Cabesa Devaka gives us this description in the southwest 700 00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:57,920 Speaker 1: of he stays in a town every night, and one 701 00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:00,720 Speaker 1: hundred years later, one hundred and fifty years later, traveling 702 00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:03,480 Speaker 1: through that same landscape. I mean, there's not a town 703 00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:06,920 Speaker 1: for days, and of course it's a landscape that's been 704 00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:12,080 Speaker 1: depopulated largely by disease, but it's a very different world. 705 00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:16,080 Speaker 1: And that's what repeat photography is doing. It's just doing 706 00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:19,800 Speaker 1: it in a precise way that we had never gotten 707 00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:20,960 Speaker 1: to experience before. 708 00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:25,319 Speaker 3: And do you know, maybe I glossed over this in 709 00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:28,879 Speaker 3: the in the episode, but it's this seems like an 710 00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:32,440 Speaker 3: idea that came about at a certain moment in time. 711 00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:36,240 Speaker 3: Like I don't I don't imagine that the USGS folks 712 00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:42,239 Speaker 3: taking these photos initially. Imagine that they were just establishing 713 00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:45,839 Speaker 3: a raw point of reference, right, And I'm wondering if 714 00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:49,600 Speaker 3: this is a trend that developed that has its origin 715 00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:52,320 Speaker 3: with a particular photographic moment. 716 00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:57,759 Speaker 1: Well, I think, I mean, it may well have had 717 00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:04,319 Speaker 1: a particular moment of inspiration, but I think just and 718 00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:06,920 Speaker 1: I don't know this for a certainty, but just based 719 00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:12,000 Speaker 1: on the timing of when the USGS began going out 720 00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:16,279 Speaker 1: and asking these photographers in the nineteen seventies to go 721 00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:18,359 Speaker 1: out and help them do this, I think it had 722 00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:23,120 Speaker 1: to do with the one hundredth anniversary of the US 723 00:54:23,239 --> 00:54:28,120 Speaker 1: Geological survey, and as they were looking back the experience 724 00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:32,759 Speaker 1: of this government agency, and of course the Great Surveys 725 00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:37,239 Speaker 1: of the eighteen seventies, is the first time really that 726 00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:40,560 Speaker 1: the USGS has a large presence that a lot of 727 00:54:40,600 --> 00:54:45,400 Speaker 1: the public recognizes. That they wanted to celebrate that, and 728 00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,839 Speaker 1: the fact that they had these photographs sure was one 729 00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:51,080 Speaker 1: of the things one of the ways they could do it. 730 00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:57,600 Speaker 1: But I don't suspect that they anticipated all the directions 731 00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:02,040 Speaker 1: that the investment sigation was going to go, and you know, 732 00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:04,879 Speaker 1: and I would just be very surprised if they anticipated 733 00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:07,920 Speaker 1: that they were going to send somebody out to Virginia 734 00:55:08,080 --> 00:55:11,400 Speaker 1: City and discover that, in fact, much. 735 00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:14,560 Speaker 2: Of what had once been there was now wild looked 736 00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:19,960 Speaker 2: very different. Anticipation of what it would look like I think. So, yeah, well, Dan, 737 00:55:20,040 --> 00:55:22,000 Speaker 2: it's been fun. You bet Randall, thank you,