Third Views, Second Sights ─ A Rephotographic Survey of the American West

Third Views, Second Sights is an end-of-the-century geographical exploration patterned after the first surveys of the nineteenth century updated with new techniques and sensibilities. The project presents photographs of historic American Western sites in light of the dynamic nature of and changes to the landscape witnessed since the nineteenth century when the great expeditionary photographers - William Henry Jackson, T. H. O'Sullivan, and William Bell - first photographed for the geological and geographical surveys that became the benchmarks for change and continuity as well as for ways of seeing and representation.
The Rephotographic Survey Project revisited and rephotographed these nineteenth-century sites during the late 1970s, resulting in the monumental Second View, presenting 120 pairs of images. Two decades later, Mark Kiett and a new survey team have rephotographed 110 sites, assembling the first-view icons of early American photography with second views that explored how these nineteenth-century images were made while documenting a century of change and third views that further record a changing landscape in light of a new generation's visual sensibilities.
The book includes forty-three sights, field notes that provide a chronological account of Third View work during three field seasons, and an interactive DVD featuring all 110 sites rephotographed for the project.

Byron Wolfe is a photographer and educator teaching at California State University at Chico.