"Outdoor Adventures in San Bernardino County"
2003-12-10 until 2004-06-20
San Bernardino County Museum, Fisk Gallery
Redlands, CA, USA United States of America

"Outdoor Adventures in San Bernardino County" opens December 10 in the Schuiling Gallery of the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands. The exhibit of historical photographs continues through June 20, and is free with museum admission. San Bernardino County has an amazing diversity of outdoor environments, from the mountains to the deserts. This exhibit consists of a group of photographs taken in San Bernardino County from the late 1800s and early 1900s featuring people out in the natural environment: working, playing, relaxing, and traveling.

"Many things, like the type of clothing worn in the outdoors, may have changed over the years," said Michele Nielsen, museum archivist and curator of this exhibit, "but other things have stayed the same. People today still work and pursue leisure time activities outside for many of the same reasons the people in these images did. This exhibit gives us a chance to think about the important part the natural world in the County and its resources played in the lives of people in the past, just as it does in our lives today."

The images represent a variety of photographic methods. Some are from amateur photographers using simple box cameras to record vacation memories. Others, including professional photographers, captured the moment on glass plate negatives. Whether taken from a tiny impromptu snapshot, an albumen print of a group portrait out-of-doors, or a hand-tinted glass lantern slide, all of the photographs in the exhibit have been reproduced and mounted in a way that allows the viewer the chance to enjoy the details and color of the original images in a larger format.

Twenty-five images will be displayed, ranging from a birthday party croquet match in San Bernardino in 1885, to tent camping in the Mt. Baldy area about 1900. An 1888 recreational shooting party was captured on film at Cactus Flats near Big Bear, and in 1915 a picnicker recorded fellow picnickers and their tallyho wagon stuck in the mud near Lytle Creek. Viewers will see miners in the Mojave Desert, Zanjeros in Redlands, and family outings in the valleys and mountains.

This exhibit of images from the museum's history division archives is one in a new series of displays based upon specimens and artifacts in the museum permanent collections. "The San Bernardino County Museum has more than 1 million items in its collections," said Museum Director Robert McKernan. "We are making a concerted effort to develop exhibits using some of these materials: items rarely seen by the public yet highly relevant to our regional cultural and natural history."

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of California

Other Important Exhibitions in California