Watch how a face changes over time. The jaw is set, the eyes become more focussed.

The child becomes the man. William McFarlane Notman has done what no one could before his time: He has grown up on camera. He has watched his father at work. At 16 (15), he starts in the studio as an apprentice. A decade later, he is his father’s partner.

But the confines of the studio are not for him. Landscape is his strength. When the Canadian Pacific Railway ask his father to document their work, it is William McFarlane Notman who takes on the task. His job: to record the landscape and the people, to make images that will celebrate a growing country to the world.

Starting in 1884, for 15 years, William McFarlane Notman travels the West, taking photographs of its splendours. The CPR supply him with a rail car equipped with a darkroom.

One of the things we must remember about William McFarlane Notman was that he was on commission. So, he was sent out by the Canadian Pacific Railway to chronicle the wondrous new playground, in a sense, that was being opened by their line. Because advertising in the 19th century, much like advertising today, is always meant to serve more than one end. You’re selling a product but you’re also exposing a brand, you’re also selling a sense of quality, a sense of vision, a sense of mission and McFarlane Notman delivered all of that for the CPR in his images.

William McFarlane Notman shows a busy railway, carrying traffic from the East to growing settlements along the line.

Now this is one of my favourites of William McFarlane Notman’s. It’s from the first trip out. It’s called “Looking Above the Valley from First Trestle of Loop on the Canadian Pacific,” done in 1887. There’s a couple of fires going in the foreground here, campfires. He’s caught a moment as the smoke moves up, curls across, climbs higher, moves through a patch of low-lying mist, and then ultimately blends in with the clouds in the highest reaches.

When you look at the actual object, you’re almost certain that you can distinguish the smoke in among the mist, that, that it’s fine enough that it distinguishes the textures of those two different vapours. It’s, of course, a remarkable composition as well, these are masterful, masterful … Almost like studio shots, but taken out-of-doors.

Now, this is the Vancouver harbour. And what simpler photograph could you take? Just this uh, a horizontal line, and this giant space of the sky and the sea, broken by the added interest of a little Indian sailing canoe.

Very abstract.

Squint your eyes and you still see the same design.

Very precisely arranged by the photographer. Didn’t matter that it was a gray, foggy day with no interest here. It’s just space and land.

Notman’s landscape photographs circulate around the world, giving an image of Canada that is both exotic and grand.

For William McFarlane Notman, they are the means by which he earns a reputation that is truly his own. With them, he leaves a lasting record of a world in transition.