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AMNH Report Text Repeat Photography at Chaco Canyon Based on Photographs Made During the 1896-1899 Hyde Expedition and in the 1970s BY Harold E. Malde U.S. Geological Survey (Retired) HAL MALDE PHOTOGRAPHS BOULDER, COLORADO: 2000 Prepared in December 2000 as a single original copy for Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico U. S. National Park Service Photograph scanning and electronic document publication by Wright Paleohydrological Institute ©2001 Wright Paleohydrological Institute Contents Introduction 1 Purpose and approach 1 Summary of findings 3 Portfolio of repeat photographs 4 Kin Bineola 5 Head of Mockingbird Canyon 8 Fajada Butte from unnamed ruin 11 Fajada Butte from Una Vida 15 Una Vida 19 Chettro Kettle 23 Pueblo Bonito 27 Camp scene 31 Casa Rinconada 34 Ruin Bc-51 37 References cited 41 1 Repeat Photography at Chaco Canyon Based on Photographs Made During the 1896-1899 Hyde Expedition and in the 1970s Harold E. Malde U.S. Geological Survey (Retired) INTRODUCTION PURPOSE AND APPROACH During the 1970s, I repeated several of the photographs made during the 1896-1899 Hyde Expedition to Chaco Canyon. These matching photographs are the subject of this report. An additional photograph, dating from 1950 and repeated by me in 1976, is also included. While working with the Hyde Expedition photographs, I also established several dozen other photo sites at Chaco Canyon, some of which repeated photographs that had been made in the 1930s (Chauvenet, 1935). Many of these were repeated by me in July 2000 and are the subject of a related report (Malde, 2000). Negatives for the Hyde Expedition photos are stored at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and my negatives and transparencies are stored at the U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library in Denver. Repeat photography is the practice of finding the site of an earlier photograph, reoccupying the original camera position, and making a new photograph of the same subject, preferably at the same time of day and the same day of the year (Rogers, Malde, and Turner, 1984, p. ix). The object, in the case of landscape photographs, is to make a matched pair of photographs so as to compare large and small features, thus demonstrating possible geomorphic and biologic changes. The Hyde Expedition photos, which are attributed to Richard Wetherill, were made from unmarked locations using a full-plate camera, for which the negative image measures 6½ x 8¼ inches. Wetherill had two lenses for the Chaco photos, a standard lens of about 250 mm focal length and a wide-angle lens of about 150 mm focal length. My camera was a 4x5 view camera that produced film negatives measuring four by five inches. For lenses, I used a standard lens of 150 mm focal length and a wide-angle lens of 90 mm focal length. These produced images that closely matched the field of view of Wetherill’s camera, thus making photographs having the same coverage when suitably enlarged. In one instance, however, because I lacked a wide-angle lens at the time, I used a 2¼ x 2¼ Hasselblad camera with a 50 mm lens. In point of fact, I could have used any appropriate camera to repeat the Hyde Expedition photos. All that really mattered was to place my camera in the same position as Wetherill’s — meaning the lens position — 2 and to aim the camera at the same object. In other words, I was following the dictum of Rogers, Malde, and Turner (1984, p. xxvi) that “views made with cameras of different focal lengths from the same lens position will always match exactly, provided that both are printed and cropped to the same size.” My camera positions were generally marked by driving a rebar rod 40 inches long vertically into the ground below the camera lens, using a plumb bob. (On bare rock, a star drill was used to make a shallow hole below the lens; and, rarely, a 10-inch nail was used as a marker.) The lens was used to mark the site (rather than some other part of the camera) because the lens acts as the perspective center of a photograph, such that its position and orientation establish all the geometric relations of objects in the field of view (Malde, 1983). In the case of a view camera, for which the lenses are nearly symmetrical, I used the position of the shutter to represent the center of the lens — hence, the perspective center of the photograph. Then, as noted in the data given with the photographs that follow, other essential factors were recorded, such as lens height above the marker, aiming point, azimuth, and inclination of the camera axis. Because the camera positions occupied by Wetherill were not marked, I first found his camera locations visually by applying the familiar principle of parallax, which I have described as follows (Malde, 1973, p. 197-198): A position is found such that near and distant objects in the center of the field of view are brought into approximate alinement. Then, by moving along the center line, objects at the periphery are alined so that their apparent parallax is also correct. This procedure identifies the aiming point and fixes the camera at the proper distance from the subject. The height of the camera at this distance can generally be determined only by observing the parallax of identifiable objects in the foreground. This procedure resulted in locating the position and orientation of the camera more or less closely. By using a view camera on a tripod and “instant” Polaroid prints, I was then able to make small adjustments in position and aim, using a geometric method based on comparing ratios of horizontal and vertical distances in the old and new photographs (Harrison, 1974; Klett and others, 1984, p. 42-43). Briefly put, by measuring such ratios with respect to an arbitrary vertical line drawn on a Polaroid print, one can judge whether to move the camera up or down, left or right, or forward or backward. The final placement is achieved by making successive trials. Having found the same placement for the camera (within practical limits of tolerance, of course), I was able in some cases to reproduce the highlights and shadows in a Wetherill photo by observing how the subject looked under the prevailing direction of sunlight — that is, the existing azimuth and altitude of the sun. Although this goal can be approached analytically by using astronomical tables, I simply compared the existing lighting with that in a Wetherill photo and tried to find the best possible time within constraints imposed by my schedule for fieldwork. 3 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS Based on arguable evidence, Chaco Wash may not have been a fully incised arroyo in 1896, as it had become by the 1970s — and even well before. Arroyos typically terminate headward in a headcut, below which they have vertical walls and a comparatively broad floor, and above which the stream occupies a shallow channel. Both aspects can be discerned in the Hyde Expedition photos. Thus, an arroyo is shown opposite Pueblo Bonito in 1896 extending upstream to about half a mile above Chettro Kettle, if not farther. Furthermore, an arroyo must then have been present continuously downstream to the confluence with the Escavada, and surely beyond. On the other hand, distant views of Chaco Wash in 1896 in the area of Fajada Butte show a more or less continuous line of greasewood, apparently growing in a shallow channel, and closer views of Gallo Wash in the same area clearly show that the Gallo was not then incised. This evidence, although perhaps subject to other interpretations, points to the head of the Chaco arroyo in 1896 being somewhere between Chettro Kettle and Fajada Butte, a distance of about three miles. As for changes in vegetation between the Hyde Expedition and the 1970s, the principle difference is in the growth of greasewood, which became comparatively much more abundant nearly everywhere on the floor of Chaco Canyon. Judging from the repeat photos, this increase in greasewood was greater north of Chaco Wash than on the south side. Also, from a photo that overlooks Ruin Bc-51 from the south, which is discussed in the portfolio, a substantial part of the increase in greasewood may date from 1950, or later. In contrast, the repeat photos taken at the head of Mockingbird Canyon show no discernible change in the upland vegetation. 4 PORTFOLIO OF PHOTOGRAPHS 5 OVERLEAF LEFTLEFT “Kin Neole, a Pueblo in the Northwestern part of New Mexico/ about 15 miles SW of Pueblo Bonito.” September 1899. Hyde Expedition to Chaco Canyon. American Museum of Natural History no. 412149. Photographer not identified but attributed to Richard Wetherill. 6½ x 8¼ inches. RIGHTRIGHT USGS # 823 Site 74 M 45 Date JUN 12, 1974 Time 1234 MDT Location La Vida Mision quad, NM, 2200' E, 250' N, SW cor. Sec.32, T 21 N, R 12 W Subject Repeats Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. photo “Kin Neole, a Pueblo in the Northwestern part of New Mexico/ about 15 miles SW of Pueblo Bonito.” [Kin Bineola Ruins from the east.] Lens 150 mm Lens down 10 mm Aiming point Apex on middle wall Azimuth S 75 W Marker 10" Nail Height 3.79' above top of nail CommentComment The valley beyond the low mesa in the middle distance is a tributary of Kim-me-ni-oli Valley. Greasewood along the valley floor is comparatively more abundant in the 1974 photo than in the 1899 photo. However, vegetation in the upland area around the ruin, which is largely mantled by a thin cover of wind-blown sand, is nearly the same in both views.
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