The authors set out in 1976-1979 to rephotograph over 120 photos taken in the 1870’s as part of the military and U.S. Geological Survey’s work to document the Far West which was just opening post-Civil War.  They returned to Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah to try to take the ‘same photograph’ seeking the exact vantage (location of the center of the camera lens in real space), time of year, and time of day to repeat these photographs.  Interesting issues of the interaction between vantage and viewpoint, the personal  preferences, beliefs, and cultural settings of the individual photographers, as well as the distinctions between the objective material and the subjective choices of composition.  Another interesting issue is the interaction between time and space, in this case 100 years of time and essentially mountains and other geological formations for space.  The photographs show man-made changes in the face of geological unchangefulness:  dams fill valleys where rivers ran; highways replace dirt roads; towns disappear and new ones appear; railroads and highways cut into hillsides.  Essays by the authors focus on techniques while an essay by Paul Berger focuses on photography’s duality:  document/picture, artifact/art, visual map/carrier of cultural meaning and the triangulation of self/culture/image in viewing any photograph.  The photographic discourse depends on how these three elements are combined.  Like my interest in rereading, this book reminds us of both Heraclitus and Billy Collins (see #1747).