Lewis and Clark Revisited: A Photographer's Trail (Lyndhurst Book) - Softcover

MacGregor, Greg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0295983434 ISBN 13: 9780295983431

Publisher: University of Washington Press, 2003

Synopsis

Lewis and Clark Revisited takes us on a stunning visual journey through contemporary America. Almost ten years ago photographer Greg MacGregor began his journey, camera in hand, following the rivers west and, like Lewis and Clark, he found a country "transformed by generations of human habitation." In photographs that range from remarkable and beautiful views to powerful and unsettling images of decay, from the gently humorous to the deeply elegiac, MacGregor's eye never strays from its search for ways to see and understand the American landscape and the people who shaped it.

Like others drawn to the story of the expedition, MacGregor found inspiration in the writings of Lewis and Clark. Their journals provided him with another lens through which to look, the lens of history, and he used their words as his guidebook to follow the human imprint on the old route. The book includes many delightful and revealing extracts from the journals. These historical texts take us back to the time of Lewis and Clark while they illuminate the world represented in MacGregor's contemporary photographs. The interplay of words and images reveals the multiple faces of the landscape and reminds us of the origins of this great story two hundred years ago. Lewis and Clark Revisited offers rare insight into the American experience, asking us to examine, as Ronda aptly puts it, "who we were then, who we are now, and who we might become."

An exhibition of photographs from Lewis and Clark Revisited is traveling to more than fifteen cities throughout the United States as part of the nationwide commemoration of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. Venues include the Washington State Historical Society, Sioux City Art Center, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others.

Greg MacGregor is professor of photography at California State University, Haywood, and author of Overland: The California Emigrant Trail of 1841-1870. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad and is in the permanent collections of over twenty major public museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the George Eastman House, and the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art. James P. Ronda holds the H. G. Barnard Chair in Western History at the University of Tulsa. He is the author of Finding the West: Explorations with Lewis and Clark, Astoria and Empire, and Lewis and Clark among the Indians.

"Two centuries after Lewis and Clark the signs of change are everywhere across the wide Missouri. And they are everywhere in Greg MacGregor's photographs. Rather than artfully screening out dams, power lines, and amusement parks, his images challenge us to confront our romantic notions about the West. These photographs call out to us, asking us to move beyond nostalgia for an imaginary past or bitterness about a seemingly cluttered present to acknowledge the presence of the daily ordinary - what historian John Brinckerhoff Jackson describes as 'the vernacular landscape.' A journey on the Lewis and Clark trail today takes us into the heart of that vernacular landscape, countries both ordinary and filled with wonder." - from the Introduction by James P. Ronda

"For those citizens who are tired of sentimentality, but who also refuse to give up hope in America, this book will be a source of new conviction. MacGregor is a various times awestruck, appalled, and deeply affectionate - an explorer as tough in his way as any in the Corps of Discovery." - Robert Adams

"I read every word in a single sitting. Yes, it is that interesting! MacGregor's own words and images vividly document the changes in the American West during the past two hundred years. They generate feelings of loss and regret, but they also celebrate a pioneering adventure full of courage and hope. I loved it." - Bill Jay

"Greg MacGregor is an explorer with the intense eye of a photographer. He has tackled a difficult subject and created a beautiful and poignant social landscape in photographs that link the past with the present and bring history to alive, creating a record for the future." - Ken Light

"MacGregor's photographs bring us up to date on the explorations of Lewis and Clark, who saw on their 1804-06 journey westward to the Pacific rivers that would open this land to future development. A marvelous blend of contemporary landscape and western history." - Van Deren Coke

"For those who cannot follow the Lewis and Clark Trail themselves, this book is their eyes; for those who can, it is their memory." - Ken Karsmizki

About this title

Book Description:

Contemporary photographs follow the route of Lewis and Clark

About the Author:

Greg MacGregor is professor of photography at California State University, Haywood, and author of Overland: The California Emigrant Trail of 1841-1870. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad and is in the permanent collections of over twenty major public museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the George Eastman House, and the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art. James P. Ronda holds the H. G. Barnard Chair in Western History at the University of Tulsa. He is the author of Finding the West: Explorations with Lewis and Clark, Astoria and Empire, and Lewis and Clark among the Indians.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0295983434
• ISBN 13: 9780295983431
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224
• Editor: Tillman Hill Iris