Photographs of the Canadian Rockies, Fraser River, Yellowstone Park, etc

William Notman (photographer)

[1888-1914]
18.0 x 23.5 cm
FC 219 A34 folio

This album featuring photographs of the Canadian Rockies, Fraser River, and Yellowstone Park is a typical souvenir album that contributes to “imagined geographies” of a place, much like the album CPR 1887.

The album's albumen prints, some of which were taken by William Notman & Son’s photographic studio, were assembled between 1888 and 1914, and were pasted onto the album’s pages individually. These photographs likely circulated in other contexts as well, in other albums or as standalone pictures. 

Though these pictures are photographic and record actual spaces, the decisions that the photographers made in creating these views rely on artistic conventions for representing landscape, such as the conventions of the picturesque and the sublime. They therefore fit easily within fine art traditions. As you explore additional examples of landscape photographs included in this exhibition, you will notice many more photographs with similar compositions. 

Citation

William Notman (photographer), “Photographs of the Canadian Rockies, Fraser River, Yellowstone Park, etc,” Bruce Peel Special Collections Library Online Exhibits, accessed April 23, 2024, https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/items/show/3148.