The Frontier Years: L. A. Huffman, Photographer of the Plains

Klappentext: Before the railroad came, in the time just after the las war with the Sioux, L.A. Huffman camt to Fort Keogh as post photographer. He set up a studio in Miles City. He went into forbidden reservations among the Indians. He trekked through Montana territory, went on huntin expeditions for the bear, the buffalo, and the buck. He ranched to make ends meet. He explored deep into Yellowstone country, made pictures there of sights no white man had seen before; and famous warriors and scouts loafed in his studio and told stories of the days of Sitting Bull, Joseph, and Dull Knife and Little Wolf. He learned the soldier's life, the economics of the buffalo slaughter, the wolfer's job. He photographed the Indian, the animal-hunter and the man-hunter, the racks of bones on the field where Custer stood, wagon tracks, tree burials, skinning the buffalo, cabin interiors, the winter, hostile Sioux villages, General Phil Sheridan, Calamity Jane, the roundup, the river in flood, the freighters hauling into town, the plains... And his pictures wanted background, so he kept letters, diaries and notes of every description. His sketches have an intimacy and grass-roots authority. From 1200 negatives Mark H. Brown and W.R. Felton have culled 125 - pictures that Huffman called the best of his gathering.… (more)