[21] leaves. With 30 b&w half-tones from photographs by William Henry Jackson. 28.6x35 cm (11¼x13¾"), paper-covered boards stamped with silver title lettering on cover. First Edition. 

Unlisted in OCLC/WorldCat. The Wonder-Places pictured in this book are found mainly in the Rocky Mountains. In 1869 Jackson won a commission from the Union Pacific Railroad to document the scenery along the various railroad routes for promotional purposes. Jackson worked in multiple camera and plate sizes, under conditions that were often incredibly difficult. His photography was based on the collodion process invented in 1848 and published in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer. Jackson traveled with as many as three camera types: stereographic camera (for stereoscope cards), a whole-plate or 8x10” plate-size camera, and an even larger one, as large as 18x22”. These cameras required fragile, heavy glass plates, which had to be coated, exposed, and developed onsite, before the wet-collodion emulsion dried. Without light metering equipment or sure emulsion speeds, exposure times required inspired guesswork, between five seconds and twenty minutes depending on light conditions. Preparing, exposing, developing, fixing, washing and then drying a single image could take up to an hour.

William Henry Jackson is known as America’s pioneer photographer. His artistic growth as a landscape photographer matured when he was hired by Ferdinand V. Hayden as the official photographer for the U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. Influenced by Thomas Moran, a painter on the survey, and photographers C. R. Savage and A. J. Russell, Jackson absorbed the aesthetic of romantic engagement with the western landscape. This experience was enhanced by the inherent drama of being the first to photograph many high mountain peaks, valleys, and western scenes.