Track Cuts Across the Snow in Colorado

Track Cuts Across the Snow in Colorado

A set of tracks through soft snow leads the viewer's eye across a white plain to a herd of cattle. In the far distance, big white peaks rise beyond a range of dark foothills. 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. The cattle and their tracks give a human sense of scale to the breadth and grandeur of the Western landscape.