I'm pleased to announce the upcoming release of a new collaborative book titled Drowned River: The Death and Rebirth of Glen Canyon on the Colorado. More information about the publication is here.
Some background: thirty years ago I was a young college student when I first read an article about the theoretical effects of global climate change. Back then it was an abstract off-in-the-future concept. About the same time I saw examples of rephotography by Mark Klett and others and thought that was a compelling way to investigate and visualize the past and the ever-changing present. I chose to become a photographer.
Fast forward three decades and what was once abstract is now visible and present in every corner of the world, including Glen Canyon/Lake Powell - a place that is challenging, complex, sublime, and somber.
I’m grateful to have worked on this book with long time collaborators Rebecca Solnit and Mark Klett (our second project together and our first with designer David Chickey of Radius Books - with special thanks to Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, for his introduction). Even though there are only two rephotographs in the whole of the book, it’s probably the closest (yet) to realizing what I hoped I might do when I chose to walk a path.
Byron
There are less than two weeks left to visit Vanished: A Chronicle of Loss and Discovery Across Half a Million Years at the Chico State campus. Vanished is an investigation of four lost icons that persist as powerful ideas. These icons include a mammoth, a man, a tree, and a volcano. A collaboration between myself (project director, photographer), Heather Altfeld (writer), Oliver Hutton (graphic designer), Troy Jollimore (philosopher, poet), Sheri Simons (sculptor), and Rachel Teasdale (volcanologist), we explore how to assemble a world of fact, fiction, and myth. The results are a collection of interconnected words, images, and objects. This is the most recent iteration of a seven year effort. It's an expansive exhibition in four different venues that includes a wide range of objects, images, and installations (for example, you'll find six different book publications including one that is eight feet wide!).
For more information about the show and the collaborators, please link here.
Byron
It's been a long time coming (twelve years!) but the book Scott Brady and I have been working on is finally done. It's called Phantom Skies and Shifting Ground: Landscape, Culture, and Rephotography in Eadweard Muybridge's Illustrations of Central America. It's co-publication between Temple University Press and Radius Books and is now available for purchase: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2415_reg.html
Radius books did a beautiful job designing the book and it even includes a small portfolio of separately bound Muybridge photographs in the front section.
In related news, Places Journal, a wonderful site for scholarship on architecture, landscape, and urbanism published an abridged version of my essay from the book. It can be found here: https://placesjournal.org/article/eadweard-muybridges-secret-cloud-collection/
And if you want to get a sense of the entire scope of the project, including animations about Muybridge and the wacky things he did with clouds, visit Phantomskies.com, a companion web site I made with Temple University Press. It's an experiment in open source publication that allowed me to show some more kinetic versions of creative work from the project.
Byron
Daniel Seth Kraus (a former graduate student) and I received Temple-Wagner Research Fellowships at The Wagner Free Institute of Science in Philadelphia. We've been investigating two mysterious and very small microscopic slides made in the mid-1850s. They're exactly what they sound like: tiny pictures that are on 1" x 3" glass slides that are so small they can't be seen with the naked eye and require a microscope for viewing. The actual image would fit into the center of this "o".
The slides were made by the Langenheim Brothers, two early and important Philadelphia photographers (they made the first panorama of Niagara Falls, the first photographs of an eclipse, and they invented the process used to make lantern slides). We'll be making a brief 10 minute presentation of our findings along with seven other fellows on Thursday, September 28, from 6 - 8 PM. We did more than figure out what's in the pictures, but you'll have to attend to learn about our discoveries. It's free, but to reserve a spot and to read more about it, jump here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-perspectives-on-historic-collections-tickets-36838667446
Byron
I'm pleased to announce that Some Version of the Same River, an essay by Troy Jollimore paired with some of my recent photography, is included in the Fall 2014 issue of BOOM: A Journal of California. A preview is also available via JSTOR.
All of the photographs from the effort - inlcuding many not included in the BOOM article - can be seen here on my web site.
The work considers some photographs of Ishi, the last living member of the Yana people who resided in a rugged and remote area in Deer Creek, California, not far from my former home in Chico. He "emerged from the wilderness" in 1911 in nearby Oroville and lived in the Bay area for the last five years of his life.
My pictures are an investigation and response to photographs originally made in 1914 when Ishi and antropologist Alfred Kroeber returned to Ishi's former home. I was principally interested in learning more about the original documents by investigating the place where they were made.
Some Version of the Same River is from a larger overall project called Vanished: A Chronicle of Discovery and Loss Across Half a Million Years. It's a trans-disciplinary effort that considers several Northern California regional icons that have disappeared, including the former Mount Tehama, the Hooker Oak, and a Columbian Mammoth's molar discovered in a flood diversion channel. The project is ongoing.
The Vanished collaborators include:
Byron
I'm very excited to announce that Everyday: A Yearlong Photo Diary has just been released for the iPad. This link will take you to it at Apple's iTunes/iBook store where you can download a free abridged version, complete with a new foreword, the original introductory essay, and a small selection of the pictures. The full version is available for $3.99. I hope you'll explore the publication, and if you like it, provide feedback at the Apple bookstore. Most of all, please share it with your friends!
It works on all iPads running iBooks 2.2 and looks spectacular on the most recent model with the retina display. It will not run on iPhones.
Why did I go back a redo something that was already complete? I've long thought about re-releasing the book in electronic format. Indeed, in 2004 my original proposal to Chronicle Books (the publisher of the hardbound copy) included an electronic version, but it was just too early in the e-book world for such a thing to find an audience.
But more importantly, it's been ten years (!) since I first started making daily pictures with the intent of sharing them with a wider audience as a book of narrative photographs. Back in 2002, the idea of making and sharing personal and daily pictures was uncommon. A decade ago, the photography and communication world was very different, well before digital cameras (and iPhones) became commonplace. Now we have ubiquitious picture-sharing sites, photo blogs, Facebook, and the wildly popular Instagram - all new and engaging ways to make and share photographs. I'm hoping the iPad edition of Everyday finds a home with this new audience, partly because they'll find something they like in the work, but also because so many people now participate in the practice of shared daily photography.
In many ways I think the electronic version of Everyday is a much better marriage of content and form than the original printed volume in that it's a closer realization of my original idea of a flowing visual narrative. What's more, every picture is presented in the same size so that significant details can now be seen. Captions are also included as my handwritten text, a subtle, but important change.
Byron
I am pleased to announce the publication of Reconstructing the View: The Grand Canyon Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe.
It includes essays on working methods and collaboration by photography curator Rebecca Senf, Norton Family Curator of Photography at the Phoenix Art Museum, and an essay by Stephen Pyne, Regents' Professor, Arizona State University, that provides a conceptual framework for understanding the history of the canyon.
Published by the University of California Press with the Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography. Hardcover, 208 pages.
It is available directly from UC Press (direct link here) as well as fine book sellers such as PhotoEye (direct link here).
The Phoenix Art Museum gift shop currently has copies signed by all four contributors.
Byron
Pink Magnolia (Liriodendrum tulipfera) That showy tree behind Tehama Hall, 2/05
In the Spring of 2005 I was commissioned to create a series of pictures about the Chico State Arboretum which spans the entire 119-acre University Campus. Colleague Alan Rellaford designed a series of banners using the images that were then installed on the Gus Manolis bridge. The bridge was eventually destroyed in 2014 by a fallen California sycamore (Platens racemosa)! We also made a limited edition poster. Eventually I enlarged my inquiry to include specimens beyond trees.
Most of the pictures were made by placing found objects directly onto a flatbed scanner - a technique reminiscent of some of the earliest photochemical processes practiced by 19th century artists such as William Henry Fox Talbot and Anna Atkins. I added captions in my own handwriting to indicate the specimen's common and scientific names, and something about the place, or act of discovery.
The original prints are typically sized to 40" x 40", although I sometimes produce smaller versions. Each image is printed on 100% cotton rag inkjet paper and limited to an edition of 25 regardless of size.
Some day I intend to add to this work that is as much about the act of looking, curiosity, and discovery, as it is about physical specimens.
To see selections of this work in progress, follow this link.
In the dead of night in 1875, just after being acquitted for the murder of his wife's lover, Eadweard Muybridge boarded the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's vessel The Honduras. He temporarily took on the name Eduardo Santiago Muybridge and spent a year photographing all along the Central American Pacific Coast with particular emphasis given to his travels in Guatemala and Panamá.
To see a full catalog of our work on this project, please visit klettandwolfe.com.
Reconstructing the View is a collaboration with Mark Klett.
A book (University of California Press and the Phoenix Art Museum, November 2012) and traveling exhibition are forthcoming. The Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography produced this brochure for an exhibition we had in 2009.
Above: Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe, 2007. Details from the view at Point Sublime on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, based on the panoramic drawing by William Holmes (1882).
Medium: Digital inkjet print. Dimensions: 24”h x 96”w
Here is a brief video that describes the making of this piece.
Everyday: A Yearlong Photo Diary
8 x 8 in: 272 pages with over 365 color photographs, hardcover, Chronicle Books, 2007.
Here's a pdf of the book's introduction that outlines my motivations and the context for trying to make at least one interesting picture every single day for an entire year.
I teach an everyday project in one of my own photography courses. Here's the handout I use to introduce the assignment.
To see selections of the work in progress, follow this link.
Since sometime around 1995, I've been making documents that relate to my experience as a husband, father, son, and grandson. It's a diverse collection of inherited photographs, my own pictures, scans of found objects, hand-drawn illustrations and diagrams, and writing.
Taken broadly, I called this work Domestic Excavations. It is organized into groups with titles such as "Artifacts of Imagination," "Artifacts of Experience," "Making History," and "Favorite Trees - some with fruit."
Above: Byron Wolfe, 2009. My grandfather and great grandfather planting young maple, c. 1969.
Medium: Digital inkjet print. Dimensions: 10”h x 20”w
For examples of work from this project, please follow this link to the KlettandWolfe.com website.
Yosemite in Time: Ice Ages, Tree Clocks, Ghost Rivers by Mark Klett, Rebecca Solnit, and Byron Wolfe.
Hardcover, 144 pages. Trinity University Press.
Publisher's Description
Yosemite is a world-famous destination that has attracted celebrated photographers such as Eadweard Muybridge, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams, along with environmental organizations, rock climbers, and tourists. Yosemite in Time puts this park in a new light with re-photographs of some of the most enduring images taken at Yosemite, and three essays by noted cultural critic Rebecca Solnit. The photographs and essays reconsider the iconic status of Yosemite in America's conception of wilderness, examining how the place was appropriated by its early Euro-American visitors and showing how our conceptions of landscape have altered and how land has changed — or not — over time. Arresting and incisive, Yosemite in Time is an intimate reconsideration of a park that millions of people hold dear.
-"Lovely and important." – San Francisco Chronicle
"A fresh look at Yosemite's iconic status" – Marin Magazine
"Beautifully rendered." – National Geographic Adventure
Four Views from Four Times and One Shoreline, Lake Tenaya
From left to right: Eadweard Muybridge, 1872, Ansel Adams, c. 1942, and Edward Weston, 1937.
Back panels: Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe, 2002. Swatting high-country mosquitoes at Lake Tenaya.
Third Views, Second Sights book and DVD publication by Mark Klett, Kyle Bajakian, William Fox, Michael Marshall, Toshi Ueshina, and Byron Wolfe.
Third View project participants revisited the sites of historic western American landscape photographs. We made new photographs, kept a field diary of our travels, and collected materials useful in interpreting the scenes, change and the passage of time. The project work is disseminated with a book, an interactive DVD, a web site, and ongoing exhibitions.
Over the course of four years (1997 - 2000) the project revisited 109 historic landscape sites, all subjects of nineteenth-century American western survey photographs. The "rephotographs" were made from the originals’ vantage points with as much precision as possible. Every attempt was also made to duplicate the original photographs' lighting conditions, both in time of day and year.
Third View was created specifically to investigate changes that have occurred since the landscape sites were last photographed, a time period ranging from twenty to one hundred and thirty years. In most cases there are three photographs at each site, but Third View includes over a dozen sites that had not been rephotographed previously and in those cases there are only two views presented.
Here's a streaming QuickTime video (3:00 minutes, 15.3 megabytes) that takes you on a whirlwind tour of a small portion of the material on the interactive DVD.
The web site has animated rephotography of 19th century landscape photographs, downloadable pdfs of rephotographed sites, fieldnotes, and a bibliograpy. There's also an interactive simulation describing the basic tools and techniques we use when making a rephotograph.
