AA-2026-45BEBB
On the image
Every family with a new color slide projector in the 1950s eventually produced one of these: the obligatory scenic shot, taken on the theory that a mountain lake photographed correctly would somehow convey the smell of pine and the ache in your legs from the hike in. The cirque basin here did the composing for them, timber marching up both slopes to where the rock finally won, water lying flat and blue in the bowl between.
The golden grass gone to seed in the foreground was not planned, just what was growing at the tripod's feet, though it happens to frame the shot the way no amateur photographer of the era could have arranged on purpose. Nobody in it, nobody named, which was fine, since the point of this slide was never the people. It was proof of the drive, the altitude, and the fact that somewhere in Colorado this view still exists whether or not anyone is looking at it.
Back home, projected on a bedsheet or a fold-out screen, it would get maybe four seconds before someone called out for the next tray to advance. That was the whole economy of vacation photography then: weeks of scenery compressed into a slide show shorter than the drive to get there.
Visually related — by likeness
Alpine Lake and Cirque Basin, Rocky Mountains, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-45BEBB. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/alpine-lake-and-cirque-basin-rocky-mountains-1950s.
@misc{aaAA202645BEBB,
title = {Alpine Lake and Cirque Basin, Rocky Mountains, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-45BEBB},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/alpine-lake-and-cirque-basin-rocky-mountains-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Alpine Lake and Cirque Basin, Rocky Mountains, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-45BEBB UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/alpine-lake-and-cirque-basin-rocky-mountains-1950s ER -
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