A vast amount of research has been published on how humans have changed the ecosystems of the Southwest. But these long-term changes can be difficult to comprehend. Images can be a powerful way to fill this visual deficit between past and present.
That's the idea behind a repeat photography project led by Flagstaff resident and retired ecologist John Vankat. He’s replicated historical photos of Northern Arizona and printed these re-creations next to their older counterparts in his book, The San Francisco Peaks and Flagstaff Through the Lens of Time
Vankat began by locating well over a hundred historical photographs of the greater Flagstaff area, some dating back to the 1800s. He then went to great lengths to find and re-photograph the exact spots from which they were taken. The pairings vividly show how development, wildfires, the spread of introduced plant species, and other factors have changed the landscape.
Comparing past and present views high in the San Francisco Peaks, for example, shows that at least some of the mountains’ spruce-fir forests are now much denser than they were a century ago.
The passage of time can feel abstract. Vankat’s photos are a way to process and understand the changes wrought by the past century of human settlement in Northern Arizona. No hiking required: Vankat has already done the legwork.
This Earth Note was written by Cullen Hamblen and produced by KNAU and the Sustainable Communities Program at Northern Arizona University.