Lucky me!
My good friend, Ron Robinson, born and raised in Eagle Valley,
and now living in Springfield Oregon, sent me a package
this week. He’s an antiquarian bookseller on eBay, and the package
contained nine very small sepia-tone postcards. He acquired them
as part of a much larger estate. We both guessed the photos would be
about 100 years old. Another Eagle Valley old-timer, Frank Randall,
guessed they were all by the same photographer, and that
he had seen others years ago that were very similar.
If any one happens to know the name, or any other details, of
the photographer behind the work, I’d love to hear from you.
I immediately worked the photos over pretty good in
the digital darkroom, changing them to b & w, and
bringing out as much contrast and detail as I could,
besides just generally cleaning them up a bit.
The two of the set which I find by far the most striking
are of Glacier Lake, and Glacier Peak. This is long story
that I can’t go into now, but look for yourself. Keep your
eye on the center of the granite wall, and watch a fall of
100 meters as a contemporary photo I made last August
comes into view for contrast.
After taking a good, hard look at these photos, it will be
hard to deny that the Wallowas, very much
like Glacier National Park, have not been profoundly
affected by climate change. The amount of ice lost
is simply staggering.
For a clickable slideshow go to:
http://picture-poems.com/glacier-peak_1910/
For a QuickTime movie, go to:
http://picture-poems.com/movs/glacier-peak_c.-1910.mov
Thanks again to Ron Robinson for sending these,
I think in more ways than one, historic photos
to me.