My initial reaction to the website www.thirdview.org was one of “it’s a gimmick and it beeps at me.” As I explored further I found images taken over 100 years apart with the same rocks and bolders in the pictures that had not moved or changed in the period between. This image here demonstrates this admirably, http://www.thirdview.org/3v/photolib/NVTR01/index.html

Also you can see the influence of man on the landscape and the population increases in the areas as in more than one view across a valley has been dammed in the later images providing water for the population that have moved to the area. http://www.thirdview.org/3v/photolib/COGT02/index.html

As you read about the project you realise that it has a massive scale and is following work started in the 1860’s and 70’s as the ‘western geological and geographical survey’ with these being typically the earliest pictures taken of the American West. This sets the baseline for the First View. The Second View took place in the 1970’s involving photographers Klett, Manchester and Verburg with a book being published Second View: the Rephotographic Survey Project, Klett, Manchester, and Verburg, the University of New Mexico Press, 1984. Finally the Third View which is an updated version of the 19th century original survey which is demonstrated on the website here www.thirdview.org. Mark Klett is the project director and all the other photographers involved can be seen

here   http://www.thirdview.org/3v/home/intro.html.

This method of display of the works extremely well and is a great use of new technology in displaying a body of work of this scale. It is accessible to everyone with a computer and clearly shows mans influence on the landscape over a period of time. What makes the project interesting to me is the period of time it spans. More than a lifetime.