photography

Less than three years after French painter Louis Daguerre shared with the world how to make pictures on polished sheets of silver-plated copper, Lt. John C. Fremont attempted to photograph the land we think of as Wyoming. The early photographers of Wyoming adapted new technology to rough terrain and unforgiving elements.

Lora Nichols of Encampment, Wyo., got a camera for her 16th birthday in 1899 and kept snapping photos until her death at age 78. Her work leaves a vivid record of her time and place, and of her clear-eyed vision of the lives of her neighbors and kin.

William Henry Jackson’s artistic passions began during childhood in upstate New York. By age 15, he was retouching photographs for professionals. His photos of the West, especially Yellowstone Park, many of them made in the 1870s with the Hayden survey, had an enormous influence on public perceptions of the American West.