Vintage Dye Transfer Prints | Cibachrome Prints | The History of How Color Came To Landscape Photography

For An Introduction to the Dye Transfer Printing process Click Here.

For a description of the dye-transfer printing process written by Philip Hyde Click Here.

To discover more about how color came to landscape photography and how Philip Hyde made the transition to color photography Click Here.

A description of the Cibachrome printing process coming soon...

The New York Times reported that Philip Hyde was the primary photographer of the groundbreaking Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series that popularized the large coffee table picture book. Philip Hyde had more photographs in more of the books in the series than any other photographer. Ansel Adams, Nancy Newhall and David Brower invented the Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series which helped to make many national parks in the late 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s and brought modern environmentalism onto the national scene.

The Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series began with "This Is The American Earth" with photographs primarily by Ansel Adams and a few others including Philip Hyde, Ray Atkeson, Wynn Bullock, Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Garnett, Pirkle Jones, Eliot Porter, Edward Weston, Minor White and Cedric Wright. In 1962, the Sierra Club began to add color to its large format photography books. "In Wildness Is The Preservation Of The World" with photographs by Eliot Porter and quotes by Henry David Thoreau, "Island In Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula" by Harold Gilliam with photographs by Philip Hyde and Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" all came out the same year in 1962. "In Wildness Is The Preservation of the World" was a well-planned art photography book, whereas "Island In Time" was a more documentary, rushed project published with the express purpose of raising funds to create Point Reyes National Seashore.

Perhaps one of the most noted large format volumes published by Sierra Club Books was "Slickrock: The Canyon Country of Southeast Utah" by Edward Abbey and Philip Hyde. Also of note in the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series was "Time and The River Flowing: Grand Canyon" by Francois Leydet with Philip Hyde as the primary illustrator and additional photographs by Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter and many of the who's who of landscape photography and the natural sciences at the time. "Time and The River Flowing" perhaps became the most known internationally as it helped galvanize support from all over the world to keep two dams from flooding the Grand Canyon just above and in the lower reaches of Grand Canyon National Park. "Time and the River Flowing" first exposed the entire world to the power of photography for conservation.