American Fork Canyon 1870 - 1880

Curator: Right, let's delve into this photograph, “American Fork Canyon” by Charles Roscoe Savage, captured sometime between 1870 and 1880. It’s a gelatin silver print. Quite stunning, isn’t it? Editor: Absolutely! There’s a sublime quality here – a real sense of awe, of the overwhelming power of nature. And the light is hitting those rocks just so. It's both rugged and inviting, you know? Curator: Precisely. Savage was very interested in depicting the American West. And in this period photography was intimately tied with documenting expansion and, let’s be honest, conquest. So, landscapes like this were not just about beauty; they were tied up with ideas of progress. Editor: And the tiny train chugging through! Almost swallowed by the landscape. Is it meant to symbolize man’s intrusion on nature, maybe a David and Goliath complex, a symbol for the ambition that can lead you either to ruin or to grand opportunities? Curator: You raise an excellent point. It might show dominion but, just as validly, it also underscores our utter dependence. I read the train more as representing a fulfillment of manifest destiny: bringing resources, industry, and settlers westward. Editor: It definitely sets a great stage. The canyons become theatrical backdrops to a moment in a developing narrative of steel tracks being laid into previously pristine scenery, so raw yet full of such fine and well thought through details. You see something new with every view, you could imagine it in so many colours even in black and white! Curator: I agree. And it's easy to forget this was still quite early in photography’s development. The technical skill required to get an image like this, out in the field, was substantial. Plus, consider the audience: these pictures were circulated widely, shaping perceptions of the West. They fueled narratives, created opportunities… Editor: It really makes you wonder what's changed about it over the years... are we even close in capturing what the canyons would feel and sound like in such photographs. I get this sense, like a shadow cast that leaves one speechless but somehow yearning. Curator: Indeed, a perfect balance of beauty and critical awareness is what it truly embodies. A journey for us all through what it was and what it now is. Editor: Beautifully put. An echo, a tangible glimpse of a world reshaping itself, with us right along with it.