Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Just as no photo really does justice to the majesty of a beautiful landscape, an online gallery like this doesn’t quite convey the depth of work in David T. Hanson’s book, Wilderness to Wasteland (Taverner Press). He goes deep and wide in his view of the American West.

The photographs included here span 1982 to 1987 and are broken into four groups: Atomic City (images of the former nuclear boom town in Idaho), Richest Hill on Earth (mining towns near Butte, Montana), Wilderness to Wasteland (hazardous waste sites throughout the West) and Twilight In the Wilderness (night images of industrial sites). Taken as a whole, this body of work captures a point in time of the West, a place that feels forever weathered and aged while at the same time constantly evolving. As a Montana native, Hanson knows the territory well. There’s so much to soak up in each photo, details in the landscapes that make you feel like you’re standing on the side of US 26 in Idaho, just outside Atomic City.

In the introduction, Joyce Carol Oates touches on how Hanson’s work shows how much we’ve moved past the idealized, romantic idea of the American West, championed by Ansel Adams. While most people are familiar with Ansel Adams, Hanson’s work evokes noted photographer Robert Adams, who has spent a lifetime also artfully documenting the changing West, particularly the slow encroachment of people on the landscape. Hanson’s photos have a sandy bitterness you don’t quite get in the serene black and white work of Robert Adams. There’s always the presence of humans in Hanson’s photos, but never people, lending an air of uneasy quietness.

Hanson’s book is an excellent milestone in the long history of photographers exploring the West and humans’ impact on it. And thirty years since this work was made, photographers like Lucas Foglia, Jamey Stillings and Jennifer Little continue the work of documenting the changing West.

All photos by David T. Hanson/Taverner Press.

Ft. Worth-Dallas Club, next to the Pantex nuclear weapons plant, Carson County, Texas, 1985.

Mt. Con Mine waste pile and remains of Corktown, Butte, Montana, 1985.

Mt. Con Mine and Centerville, Butte, Montana, 1985.

Looking toward Los Angeles from Interstate 5, near Sylmar, California, 1985

East Edge of Atomic City, Idaho.

Yankee Doodle tailings pond, Butte Area Superfund site, Butte, Montana, 1986.

Abandoned Union Carbide Lucky Mac uranium mine, Gas Hills, Fremont County, Wyoming, 1986

 

Tooele Army Depot Superfund site, Tooele, Utah, 1986.

Fading Daylight along the Yellowstone River [Exxon Corporation, Billings, Montana], 1982.

Dusk on the Prairie, Montana [Montana Power Company, Colstrip, Montana], 1982

Fackrell’s Texaco Store & Bar, Atomic City, Idaho, 1986.


If you buy a book using a Bookshop link on this page, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate