Timothy O’Sullivan, Photographer

He could have stayed in the city, photographed the cheese and oyster boys after the war, opal-colored orphans or ladies of unfortunate standing, back when tall buildings still believed in America, back when concrete was still a thing of splendor. Instead he went West to rehabilitate his grief. Always the white sky. Always the dark figures lost in an immense world full of danger and disaster, starvation and storms of mosquitoes thick enough to snuff out candles. Provisions lost in a blazing sun that watched constantly. Twice hit by shell fragments, once by tuberculosis. Dead at 42. The fortunate thing about his camera was its ability to stray— to put things in that didn’t belong, like footprints in the sand. Here is the photographer and his party exploring the great canyons of the West while their clothes dry on the line.