Buffalo Bill Cody, a peculiarly American genius, bowing his head in a farewell performance. At least that's the caption on the back of this remarkable photograph from the Louisiana Digital Library collection. Even the horse is posing for the camera in what must have been a long exposure of not less than ten seconds and probably more.
Was Bill a relentlessly commercial showman, cagily and falsely romanticizing an already bygone era or was he a sincere genius bringing an all- American- larger- than- life spectacle to an eager public? Well, evidently, he was both. And toward the end he became the regal figure we see here.
Lloyd Fonvielle has recently published another photograph from the Wild West Show archives of Annie Oakley, so this pic is a shout out to Lloyd and his wonderful blog mardecortesbaja.com.
1 comment:
This is a pretty interesting picture and it's pretty incredible to think about the long exposure given how spontaneous and natural the whole thing looks.
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