Exercise 2:1 Territorial photography

This exercise required the reading of Joel Snyder's essay 'Territorial Photography' and to summarise the key points made.
Again I found this a difficult read and I can say I am starting to feel slightly out of my depth amongst all this theory.
From what I could gather, Snyder explains first off more about how photography was understood in the nineteenth century. It relates back to Krauss's essay (ex 1:2) where we establish what a photographer was and how photography was perceived.
Photos were then printed to prove accuracy of the scenes they represented and this process made photographs more 'mechanical and technological'. Photographs then went onto help make belief of something creative in 'handmade pictures'. By isolating photography this way it appeared more technical instead of an art form, which is where people of this time were questioning whether photography was an art form at all.
As photographs were mass produced in this way, it made them real and not just imaginative. This was true for landscapes but also for portraiture.
Commercial photographers were stuck in the 'genre' of landscape at this time. Snyder says they were 'structuring landscape to specific terms', meaning that the photographs were taken to specifically fit the genre set by paintings.
This printing of these prints expanded landscape photography to a wider audience and I think this was used as a tourist attraction 'advert', if you like, to attract that 'wider audience' to a specific area. This printing made the photos more appealing and attractive and they became documentation of different areas. This then gave the photographers the freedom to record what they actually saw in their photographs, un-restraining them from the genre limits. Painting then became an imagitive view as photography became realism.

Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) was a noted photographer during the 19th Century (1). He worked producing images for mining and lumber companies as well as the railroad company. His photographs depict the landscape and the industry within it. Watkins finds a way to make a unison between the two factors as to make them blend together naturally. I affect, the landscape is being lost to the industry and some could argue the images were not landscapes as they didn't fit the genre at that time.

Carleton Watkins, photographer (American, 1829 - 1916)

Railroad Bridge, Cape Horn, Mariposa County, 1860, Salted paper print
Image (dome-topped): 32.2 x 40.6 cm (12 11/16 x 16 in.) Mount: 49.2 x 59.7 cm (19 3/8 x 23 1/2 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2)

The image above shows the railroad ;cutting' through the landscape however it seems to fit so well into the landscape itself and the photograph shows exactly what Watkins saw, documenting the landscape as it was and not within the limits of the landscape genre.
Watkins documented the West as a land of human intervention. Where industry worked alongside the landscape and made it appear more homely and habitable.
Watkins work was a complete contrast to the depiction of the West by Timothy O'Sullivan.

Timothy O'Sullivan (1840-1882) notoriously known for his work relating to the American Civil War and the Western United States (3).  Clarence King appointed O'Sullivan to photograph the West for geological surveys. The images O'Sullivan produced were not contemporary to previous landscape photographs.

Timothy H. O'Sullivan South side of Inscription Rock, New Mexico, 1873 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (4)

As with the image above, The images were completely contrasting to that Watkins work. The images showed a baron land, void of any human intervention. The land was shown to be empty, inhabitable and undisturbed landscape.

References:

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carleton_Watkins accessed 1st February 2014

2) http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1989&page=2 accessed 1st February 2014

3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_H._O%27Sullivan accessed 1st February 2014

4) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Timothy_O%27Sullivan,_South_side_of_Inscription_Rock,_New_Mexico,_1873.jpg accessed 1st February 2014