There is more than one photography-history-literary continuum buff out there for whom this link-post is intended. One is our erstwhile contributor of great photographic compositions and written reflections on his own photographs; as Milo heads west, he heads toward history. His family history, at minimum. His Inman predecessors first headed west centuries back when Kansas was the great frontier. But this guy is always looking forward while his brother puts some perspective on it all, taking a closer look through the rearview mirror.

Milo follows in the footsteps of several generations of painters, photographers and printmakers in his family who all headed west.  One of them, in San Francisco now, has even shown an affinity for Civil War era photography of the type reflected on in this article on the Atlantic‘s website, so we shout this one out to Milo, Seth and Paul in particular:

Let’s play a short, highly contrived game, called called “Smile or Grimace?”

Here’s Major General Samuel P. Heintzelman, an officer of the Federal Army, photographed during the war:

Library of Congress

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At first glance, it might seem to be a group of photos from the box of one of those street vendors in Paris. Not so, as Luc Sante points out in the New York Review of Books:

Charles Marville is best known for his government commission to photograph the neighborhoods of Paris slated for demolition during Baron Haussmann’s reconfiguration of the city between 1853 and 1870. In fact, that is virtually all he has been known for, a matter the authors of Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris are eager to rectify. Continue reading →