Road Passes Through Rangeland in Colorado

Road Passes Through Rangeland in Colorado

A road carves straight back across a vast, dark plain toward a high mountain range in the far distance. In the winter of 1954 Life Magazine sent Ruohomaa to Fraser, Colorado to photograph life and work amongst the woodsmen and ranchers in the frigid, snow-laden landscapes of the Rocky Mountains. The following year Life assigned him to make images to illustrate the magazine's centennial celebration of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass", including scenes from Fraser, and other locations tracing the path of the poet around America. Ultimately the magazine selected twelve, titled "The Paths Whitman Walked: poet's 'Leaves of Grass' has its 100th anniversary." Sixteen years later, several of Ruohomaa's photos from Colorado and beyond were included in another publication of the poet's collection, "The Illustrated Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman" (1971). Howard Chapnick , Ruohomaa's dear friend and colleague, was the editor, and had arranged early on in the project to have the poet William Carlos Williams write the introduction. In it Williams' insights extolled a deep appreciation of the relationship between the arts of poetry and photography. This photo appears in the Life essay, cropped extensively left, right, and on top to form a vertically-oriented frame. The sky dominates. The printed image is adjusted so the road reads brighter and more immediate, and the clouds closer, their undersides dark and dramatic. The editor's caption reads: "On the plains of Colorado, which Whitman crossed at the age of 60, on his first trip west, a lonely road runs toward the horizon near La Veta." It is used to illustrate Whitman's famous poem "Song of the Open Road": Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road. Healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. The similarly cropped image was also selected for inclusion in the 1971 Chapnick book, again to illustrate the 17-verse poem, printed in its entirety.