How the Wild West REALLY looked: Gorgeous sepia-tinted pictures show the landscape as it was charted for the very first time


These remarkable 19th century sepia-tinted pictures show the American West as you have never seen it before - as it was charted for the first time.

The photos, by Timothy O'Sullivan, are the first ever taken of the rocky and barren landscape.

At the time federal government officials were travelling across Arizona, Nevada, Utah and the rest of the west as they sought to uncover the land's untapped natural resources.

Breathtaking landscape: A view across the Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho in 1874 as it was caught on camera by photographer Timothy O'Sullivan during Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian that lasted from 1871 to 1874. Approximately 45 feet higher than the Niagara falls of the U.S and Canada, the Shoshone Falls are sometimes called the 'Niagara of the West'. Before mass migration and industrialisation of the west, the Bannock and Shoshone Indians relied on the huge salmon stocks of the falls as a source of food. And the John C. Fremont Expedition of 1843, one of the first missions to encounter the falls reported that salmon could be caught simply by throwing a spear into the water, such was the stock

Land rising from the water: The Pyramid and Domes, a line of dome-shaped tufa rocks in Pyramid Lake, Nevada photographed in 1867. Taken as part of Clarence King's Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, O'Sullivan's mesmerising pictures of the other-wordly rock formations at Pyramid Lake committed the sacred native American Indian site to camera for the first time

Famous photographer: Timothy O'Sullivan whose childhood and background are the subject of debate among photographic scholar was of Irish ancestry. It is known that as a teenager he worked in the studio of the legendary 19th century photographer Mathew Brady, who is seen as the father of photo-journalism. A veteran of the American Civil War in its first year, O'Sullivan turned his hand to photographing the horrors of war in during the final three years of the conflict before setting out on his cross-continental expeditions.

Timothy O'Sullivan, who used a box camera, worked with the Government teams as they explored the land. He had earlier covered the U.S. Civil War and was one of the most famous photographers of the 19th century.

He also took pictures of the Native American population for the first time as a team of artists, photographers, scientists and soldiers explored the land in the 1860s and 1870s.

The images of the landscape were remarkable - because the majority of people at the time would not have known they were there or have ever had a chance to see it for themselves.



O'Sullivan died from tuberculosis at the age of 42 in 1882 - just years after the project had finished .



He carted a dark room wagon around the Wild West on horseback so that he could develop his images. He spent seven years exploring the landscape and thousands of pictures have survived from his travels.

The project was designed to attract settlers to the largely uninhabited region.

O'Sullivan used a primitive wet plate box camera which he would have to spend several minutes setting up every time he wanted to take a photograph.

He would have to assemble the device on a tripod, coat a glass plate with collodion - a flammable solution. The glass would then be put in a holder before being inserted into a camera.

After a few seconds exposure, he would rush the plate to his dark room wagon and cover it in chemicals to begin the development process.



Considered one of the forerunners to Ansel Adams, Timothy O'Sullivan is a hero to other photographers according to the Tucson Weekly .

'Most of the photographers sent to document the West's native peoples and its geologic formations tried to make this strange new land accessible, even picturesque,' said Keith McElroy a history of photography professor in Tucson.

'Not O'Sullivan.



'At a time when Manifest Destiny demanded that Americans conquer the land, he pictured a West that was forbidding and inhospitable.



'With an almost modern sensibility, he made humans and their works insignificant.



'His photographs picture scenes, like a flimsy boat helpless against the dark shadows of Black Canyon, or explorers almost swallowed up by the crevices of Canyon de Chelly.'

