# "How the Wild West REALLY looked"



## limr (Sep 12, 2013)

19th century photographs of the American West. Outstanding photographs by Timothy O'Sullivan, who photographed the Civil War and is considered a forerunner to Ansel Adams.

The American West as you've never seen it before: Amazing 19th century pictures show the landscape as it was chartered for the first time | Mail Online


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## TATTRAT (Sep 12, 2013)

Very cool! Simply amazing, would have loved to have been around during that time frame of the developing U.S.A., followed closely by the 1950/60's.

Thanks for sharing the find!


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## tirediron (Sep 12, 2013)

Thanks for posting!


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## timor (Sep 12, 2013)

Thanks from me to.


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## Warhorse (Sep 13, 2013)

I also enjoyed viewing these, thanks for posting them.


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## peter27 (Sep 13, 2013)

Nice link. Thanks limr.


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## C4n0n.Fan (Sep 13, 2013)

I wonder how long the exposures were?


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## Woodsman (Sep 13, 2013)

Excellent, thank you for sharing the link


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## Tailgunner (Sep 13, 2013)

Amazing!


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## DarkShadow (Sep 13, 2013)

How cool is that. Thanks for sharing, I really enjoyed this. MY wife liked #4 the Native American Indians as she has part American Indian but unfortunately not enough to own a casino, what a bummer.


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## paigew (Sep 13, 2013)

Wow, very cool. thanks for sharing.


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## limr (Sep 13, 2013)

My pleasure, folks. I saw it in another forum and thought there would be some interest in it here. The incredible part of this to me was how he had his own traveling darkroom, which can actually be seen in the picture showing the wagon in the sand dunes. It makes sense; he was taking wet plate collodion pictures which couldn't just be thrown in a bag and developed months later. But still. Can you imagine maintaining a mule-drawn wagon darkroom through rough Western terrain?

Collodion process - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The article said the exposures were for a few seconds, which seems about right. There's some slight motion blur in some of the portraits but not too much. And most were taken in full daylight. Of course, then there were the pictures he took down in silver mines, burning a magnesium wire as an improvised flash. Amazing.


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## vintagesnaps (Sep 13, 2013)

Some of those are stunning. I think tintypes and daguerrotypes can sometimes have an amazing depth and quality. 

This past summer Mark Osterman was doing a collodion workshop along the Erie Canal (which may in part have been sponsored by the Eastman House) and I think he posted a photo of one of those portable darkrooms of that era, maybe that had been photographed in the same area where the workshop was held. 

(edit - found the workshop info., the photo I saw was probably posted over the summer -  http://www.shop.eastmanhouse.org/workshops/workshop-2013--07.html)


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## pgriz (Sep 13, 2013)

Thank you for posting the link - excellent article.


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## snerd (Sep 14, 2013)

Gawd those are amazing photos!


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## 114florida (Sep 14, 2013)

Thanks for sharing. Really Cool Images.


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## limr (Sep 14, 2013)

vintagesnaps said:


> (edit - found the workshop info., the photo I saw was probably posted over the summer -  http://www.shop.eastmanhouse.org/workshops/workshop-2013--07.html)



I checked out that site and he's got a ton of workshops. And of course, I'd love to take most of them. 

Damn. Gotta start playing the lottery.


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