This is one of the books I got on my used book binge last weekend. It’s an overview of (gasp) photography in and of the Old West, from the early days of photography up through 1915 or so. More accurately, it’s a survey of the prominent photographers of the Old West during that period. For each, the author presents a biographical sketch, describing the photographer’s life and their contributions to photography; this is followed by a handful of their photographs.

I picked this up with great anticipation, and unfortunately I was somewhat disappointed. The biographical sketches are good, certainly, and I presume the photos were well chosen from those that are available. But I was hoping for more photos from each photographer, and I would have liked a little more information about each specific photo.

On the whole, though, it’s an interesting book, and I’m glad I bought it. Some of the photographers were masters of their craft, and their photos remain classics; I especially liked C.E. Watkins’ photos of San Francisco. Others, alas, were not. The author dismisses Dr. William A. Bell, for example, as marginally competent, and the included images prove the point thoroughly–here, at least, I’m satisfied with a small selection of photos. And then there’s Camillus Fly–an unlucky gent who was foolish enough to open a photography studio in Tombstone, Arizona, one of the roughest towns in the Old West, and who somehow failed to take pictures of shoot-out at the OK Corral…even though the OK Corral was next door to his studio, the shoot-out took place at 2:30 in the afternoon, and Fly is known to have been one of the on-lookers. On the other hand, he took the only photos known to exist of Geronimo the Apache–the force that caught Geronimo happened to leave from Tombstone, and Fly was lucky enough (for once) to be asked to come along.

All in all, not a bad book if you can find it.