Photographs for Repeat Photography

 

During the period 1978 to 1994 when I was employed wtih the U. S. Geological Survey    and    West Texas A & M University, I made a series of photographs to document landscape change using the methods of repeat photography.*  Most of these photographs were made with either an 8 x 10-  or 4 x 5-inch view camera and the camera stations were marked with a rebar stake or a rock cairn.  Supporting geographic and photographic data were recorded for each station.  Dr. Harold E. Malde, research geomorphologist with the U. S. Geological Survey, Denver, introduced me to this technique and was my mentor over many years.  The photographs that I made were not repeats of earlier photographs but are new photographs to be repeated by workers in the future.  The majority of the photographs were made on black-and-white negative film; a few were made on color transparency film.  Most of the photographs are of areas and features in New Mexico and northern Mexico with a lesser number in Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, and southern Mexico. 

Arrangements have been made for this collection of landscape documentary photographs to be deposited with the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.  As time permits I am preparing descriptions of the photographs and transferring negatives, proof prints, and descriptive data to the Center.  Recently a number of the photographs have been cataloged by the Center and are now available for use by interested workers.  On-line images of the photographs with descriptive data may be viewed at the Center's New Mexico Digital Collections page (http://econtent.unm.edu/).  Instructions for ordering copies of the photographs are on the Center's website.

Several dozen of the photographs have been published in geologic publications over the years and could be viewed in this format.  The New Mexico Geological Society Annual Fall Field Conference Guidebooks for the following years contain selections of these photographs:  1985, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1994, and 1995.  Two numbers of New Mexico Geology, a serial publication of the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, contain photographs:  vol. 26, no. 3 (2004) and vol. 27, no. 1 (2005).  Finally, a small portfolio of these photographs was published in the February, 1992, issue of New Mexico Magazine.


*Some general references on repeat photography (also known as "rephotography") include the following:

Dingus, Rick, 1982, The photographic artifacts of Timothy O'Sullivan:  University of New Mexico Press; 
Hastings, J. R. and Turner, R. M., 1965, The changing mile:  University of Arizona Press;     
Klett, Mark, and others, 2004, Third views, second sights, a rephotographic survey of the American
          West:  Museum of New Mexico Press;
Rogers, Garry, Malde, Harold E., and Turner, Raymond M., 1984, Bibliography of repeat photography for
          evaluating landscape change:  University of Utah Press;
Webb, Robert H., Boyer,Diane E., and Turner, Raymond M., 2010, Repeat photography, methods and 
          applications in the natural sciences:  Island Press.


The photograph below is an example of a broad landscape view made for monitoring purposes.  The caption in italics is the descriptive data recorded for the photograph.
 

   

"Desert plain and southern end of Florida Mountains, Luna County, New Mexico, from a point approximately 8 miles north of Columbus, New Mexico.  View is N17 deg E.  Station location is in sec. 21, T. 27 S., R. 8 W.  Foreground has been disturbed by stock tank construction and is occupied by snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarathrae) (light-colored shrubs).  Beyond, the basin floor is underlain by pebbly sandy alluvium and is covered with a nearly pure stand of cresote bush (Larrea tridentata) with some snakeweed; tar bush (Flourensia cernua) is absent.  The station is on the north end of the artificial dam at the stock tank and is marked with a 1/4-inch rebar stake.  Photographic data:  bright sun, 90 deg light, Deardorff 8 x 10-inch view camera, 8 x 10-inch Kodak Tri-X film, 12-inch Kodak Commercial Ektar lens, 1/5 second, f/45, Wratten No. 8 filter, slight scheimpflug, back tilted slightly forward, lens height 177 centimeters.  Wayne Lambert Photograph No. 87L19.  July 19, 1987, 6:57 p.m. MDT."

As it turns out, I believe this photograph also has aesthetic interest, and so I also include it in my fine-art collection. Such doesn't happen very often.