Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 18671957 (The Northwest Photography Series)

By Terry Toedtemeier

The Columbia River Gorge exerts a powerful influence on the lives and imaginations of the inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest. For people who live here today, just as for those Native Americans and European settlers who preceded us, this dramatic natural landform is a source of awe. Since the 1860s it has inspired superb photographers who have framed and interpreted the way we see the Gorge, and who have in turn had their artistic vision shaped by this compelling landscape. The ninety-year period covered in Wild Beauty was a critical one in the river's history. Over thousands of years the wild, free-flowing torrent of the Columbia River carved a passage-the Columbia River Gorge-through the Cascade Mountain Range. In the 1860s, when the first photographers arrived, the Gorge still looked much the same as it had when Lewis and Clark made their way down the river in 1805, and indeed as it had for centuries before that, when the native peoples' culture of fishing and trade thrived along the river's banks. In the mid-twentieth century, the character of the river was fundamentally altered by the construction of hydroelectric dams. Terry Toedtemeier and John Laursen have selected more than 130 images-most of them previously unpublished and many of them never before available for public view-by some three dozen photographers to chronicle the history of photography in the Gorge. Wild Beauty begins in 1867 with images by the legendary Carleton Watkins, creator of some of the greatest landscape photographs of the nineteenth century. Later photographers include Benjamin Gifford, Lily White, Sarah Ladd, Fred Kizer, Alfred Monner, and Ray Atkeson. The volume ends in 1957 with the completion of The Dalles Dam, which drowned Celilo Falls and with it the historic site where Indians had fished for millennia.The images in this beautifully designed volume are presented one to a spread, with captions on the facing pages. The book is organized into five chronological sections, each with a brief introduction; a map shows the locations where the photographs were made. The photographs have been meticulously restored and are exquisitely reproduced in four-color process to capture the subtle coloration and nuanced tonal values of albumen prints, gelatin silver prints, platinum prints, hand-colored photographs, and early Kodachromes.The photography of Watkins and his successors is a significant piece of the cultural heritage of the Pacific Northwest. Readers interested in the history of the Columbia River and the photography of the developing American West will be enthralled by the book's scope and artistry. And those who love the Gorge's stunning beauty will welcome how this volume has captured its grandeur.Wild Beauty represents, in the words of one reviewer, "a culmination of decades of research, exhibition, and total immersion in the geology, history, and photography of the Columbia River Gorge." Oregon State University Press is proud to partner with the Northwest Photography Archive to publish this remarkable volume.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 087071418X
• ISBN13: 9780870714184
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Oregon State University Press
• Length: 345 Pages
• Weight: 6.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 11.9" x 12.8"

Customer Reviews

Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge,

After viewing the TV program on Oregon Public Broadcasting I purchased the book so I could continue to enjoy the pictures at my leisure. The book is very well done and meets my expectations. We are fortunate to have such a book to preserve that part of the history of the gorge that is now under water from the many dams. Through this book generations to come will continue to experience the gorge through the beautiful old pictures.

Wild Beauty

A memorable collection of photographs displaying the beauty of the Columbia River Gorge over ninety years (1867-1957), from notables like Carleton Watkins and Ray Atkeson. A worthy tribute to the work of Terry Toedtemeier and John Laursen.

Book "Wild Beauty"

I live in Portland,Oregon and was trying to buy this book from Portland Art Museum as they had a display of early photos from 1800's to early 1900's at their museum. Did not get to the the display so was just trying to buy the book from them and was told they were all out. The reason I wanted the book was because I have original photos from this era and wanted to know which photo belonged to which photographer as some photos I have do not have photographer name. None of the photos in the book match up with the photographs I have but I did get info from this book as to which photographers were in the area. This helped me a lot.

Wild Beauty is beautiful

This is a beautiful book, based on a beautiful exhibit that was held at the Portland Art Museum. It's all the more remarkable given the photographic techniques used to make these photos, some dating back to the 1850's. For those of us that know and love the Columbia River Gorge, it was very moving to see what it was like before all the dams were built. For photographers, there was life before PhotoShop!

A must-have for the bookshelf of any serious regional landscape photographer

One of the last things the world likely needs is a photo book on the Columbia River Gorge. This scenic area, with its numerous waterfalls, mountains, scenic vistas, and easy freeway access is probably the most over-photographed region of the Pacific Northwest. One might be pressed to say that there is nothing new left to see. And you'd be right -- but there is a lot left to see that is old, as is proved by the release of Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867-1957. Wild Beauty places the history of photography in the Gorge at the forefront. The compilers have chosen the period of 1867 to 1957 as their focus, the latter being the date when The Dalles Dam flooded Celilo Falls. The book opens with a broad essay on the river's geological and anthropological history, and the subsequent attempts to use tools of the "industrial revolution" such a photography to record those things. It's a good overview of what the book hopes to illustrate, if a bit over-familiar to the Pacific Northwest reader. The most valuable segment of this text is contained in its last two pages, where we meet some of the Gorge's earliest photographers, such as Joseph Bucthel and Carleton Watkins. While Buchtel's work is considered to be "unimpressive", Watkins' work is the entirety of the first of five sections of plates in the book. It's a wise and fitting choice, as Watkins is a skilled artist, a man who had cut his teeth making the photographs of Yosemite that would convince Congress to save it as the first national park. It is a miracle that as many prints as shown in the book even exist; the authors point out that many of his glass plate negatives were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Watkins brings his skills to bear on the Columbia Gorge, making images at a time of great transition. Sure, the book's title suggests an emphasis on natural beauty, yet what we see even in these, the earliest photographs of the work is the firm hand of man, altering the landscape. While some of the images will prove familiar, but as local historian Dan Haneckow pointed out to me, others are more obscure or bear re-examination. A prime example of this is Plate 6, a moderately familiar image of one of the old portage railroads during the 1860s. Look closely at the back, however, and you discover a flatcar carrying a Conestoga wagon as used on the Oregon Trail. Was this a late part of the great migration, taking advantage of a more modern alternative to risking the rapids or taking the long and rough Barlow Road? If so, it's a rare glimpse indeed. Watkins brings us these gems of zeitgeist, but he is not simply a documentary man. Many of his images have a sensitivity and an artistic composition that makes them excellent even today. Their sharpness, their haunting familiarity makes them seem recent rather than distant. This is but the first of many times a reader will find themselves staring into the distant past and yet feeling intimate with it, as if what