Russell’s experience photographing the Union army’s roads and bridgeworks during the Civil War made him an ideal candidate to become the official photographer for the Union Pacific, an answer to the success Central Pacific was having with photographs by Alfred Hart. In 1868 he left Laramie, Wyoming, to travel Union Pacific’s line to Salt Lake City, documenting scenic vistas, railroad construction, clerks, and labor crews along the way. He took many images of Echo Canyon in Utah, including a series showing this diminutive figure overshadowed by the massive Hanging Rock, around whose base the railway line wound.

In 1869, just as the first transcontinental line was completed, Union Pacific published a luxurious album of Russell’s images to celebrate the company’s achievement and portray the West as ready for settlement, tourism, and business. It was, as the preface explained, intended to bring to view "the colossal grandeur of the Agricultural, Mineral, and Commercial resources of the West."

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023).