Third Views, Second Sights: A Rephotographic Survey of the American West
Third Views, Second Sights makes photographs of historic American western landscapes in light of the dynamic nature of and changes to the landscape witnessed since the nineteenth century when the great expeditionary photographers—William Henry Jackson, T. H. O’Sullivan, and William Bell—first photographed for the geological and geographical surveys that became the benchmarks for change and continuity as well as for ways of seeing and representation.  The Rephotographic Survey Project, led by chief photographer Mark Klett, revisited and rephotographed these nineteenth-century sites during the late 1970s, resulting in the monumental book Second View:  The Rephotographic Survey Project (University of New Mexico Press), presenting 120 pairs of photographs separated by a century of change. Two decades later, Klett organized a new survey team to rephotographic 110 sites, assembling the first-view icons of early American photography with second views that explored how these nineteenth-century images were made while documenting a century of change, and, third views that further record a changing landscape in light of a new generation’s visual sensibilities.Third Views, Second Sights presents forty-three pairings from the third survey, documenting two periods of geologic and environmental changes while exploring changing human perceptions of landscape.