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When the cameras came: Photography and the American West, Dr. Rachel Sailor
July 25 @ 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm MDT
2024 Harlow Summer Seminar Series: July 25th
Talk Title: When the cameras came: Photography and the American West
Speaker: Rachel Sailor, University of Wyoming
We will host a BBQ at 5:30 followed by the seminar at 6:30, with a $10.00 suggested donation for attending the event. The event is open to the public and reservations are not required.
Attend Virtually: The talk will also be live on Zoom. The zoom link will be made available through our email list. If you haven’t already, join our mailing list!
Talk Abstract
Photographs of the Old West typically meet with a mixture of nostalgia, historical reverence, and pride of place for Western Americans, indeed most Americans. The aesthetics of these photographs, however, are more about tropes than truth. They illustrated a centuries-old practice of depicting places through compositions and techniques codified in seventeenth-century European painting. Yet, what about the camera’s reputation for delivering infallible veracity and for being a dispassionate intercessor between one time and place and another? What landscape aesthetics were inherited and naturalized by the camera? How do we “read” the visual rhetoric of the Old West? How do centuries-old aesthetic conventions still direct our looking and seeing of the landscape? Historical Western photographs carry an undeniable charm but are far more complex than usually recognized.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Rachel Sailor is a professor of art history and American studies at the University of Wyoming. Her research interests include the history of photography, landscape studies, and regional cultural production. She has published two books on photography of the American West and is working on a third.
Driving Directions: Turn right when entering the Leek’s Marina parking lot in Grand Teton National Park, and follow the road to the station.