DHSI 2017: Documenting "Enchanting the Desert"

Slideshow

Enchanting the Desert is based on "Henry G. Peabody’s 43-image lantern slideshow, most of which comprises sweeping landscape views" (The Geography That Hides, Part I). Each slide has been scanned, and the digital images are available on the website, courtesy of the Huntington Library.

"In short, I wanted to be able to tell the stories of the particular places visible in each photograph, places that without such elucidation are homogenized and lost in the gray tonal range of the landscape view."
(Bauch, The Geography that Hides, Part I)
Bauch, working with a field campaign research team (named on the Credits page), identified the likely locations from which Peabody took his photographs and the view angles. With the Stanford's Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, (members of which were also named on the Credits page), Bauch mapped what was visible in each slide onto the topography of the Grand Canyon. Each slide image can be overlaid with additional information, such as the landmarks visible in the photo.

The slideshow consists of 42 images and one map. The slides are all numbered; #36 is missing, due to a numbering error by Peabody that is preserved by Bauch (Noted in Peabody at the Grand Canyon, Part I: Basic Geography). The one map slide, which depicts the Grand Canyon and was used to orient Peabody's audiences, does not have the affordances described below.

(N.b., on this documentation site, the words slide, photo, and image may be used interchangeably.)

Affordances

When the slide image is displayed in the Alpha Window, several features become available.

Landmarks 


When Landmarks is toggled on by the user, a transparent PNG denoting landmark names and locations is overlaid on the slide image. These include the names of buttes, points, rivers, mesas, human structures, and more. If there is an essay related to the landmark, the landmark's name is colored red and becomes a clickable link.

Trails

When Trails is toggled on by the user, subtle white marks trace the trails visible in the photo. Trail names are also displayed. If there is an essay related to the trail, the trail's name is colored red and becomes a clickable link.

Tints

When Tints is toggled on by the user, the black-and-white slide image is replaced by another PNG image, which depicts what a tinted lantern slide might have looked like. The tinting is a recreation done by Bauch and Raina Sun.

All layers toggled on

The previous three affordances can be shown one, two, or three at a time.

Narration

Lastly, the text of the script from Peabody's narration can be overlaid on the image. Bauch reenacted these narrations and recorded the audio as MP3s, which can also be played from the page.

Documenting "Enchanting..." — audio narration of one slide.

Navigation

In addition to being the focus of the project, the slides are also a way to navigate the site. Across the top of the page design, tiny, low-opacity images of all 43 slides are lined up in a row. They are clickable links to essays about each slide.


On an essay's page, the slide it is primarily attached to is emphasized with a black shadow border. Some essays are attached to multiple slides; these secondary slides are emphasized with fully-opaque tinted images:

Other Features:

Cover 
Essays​
Map
Search / index
User Interface Overview
​User Interview w/ Caitlin Postal

This page has tags:

This page references: