The Commercial Studio
Photographs of the Section Served by the Desert Ditch and Colt Reservoir Irrigation System Under Development by the Las Animas Water Company , c. 1910
Photo Album; Silver prints (40)
Each 8 x 10 inches, some forming multi-part panoramic views
Album 9 x 11 inches
Most with captions and page numbers, in ink, on rectos.
Album 9 x 11 inches
Most with captions and page numbers, in ink, on rectos.
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Presentation albums such as these, used to showcase the work of a given company, often inadvertently tell a parallel story about the time and place of their creation. In this...
Presentation albums such as these, used to showcase the work of a given company, often inadvertently tell a parallel story about the time and place of their creation. In this instance, the album was produced by the Las Animas Water Company in order to document their work developing the Colorado’s Desert Ditch and Colt River irrigation system. But the album’s stark panoramic views and rugged construction scenes, keenly shot by the Commercial Studio of Lamar, CO, reveal underlying truths about the modernization of the American West and the beginnings of a man-altered landscape as later observed by the New Topographics photographers such as Robert Adams and Frank Gohlke.