This dramatic image of Rancho de Taos Mission in New Mexico shows how artistic the black and white photograph can be in the hands of an experienced photographer. The tonal range is excellent with the darkest black shadows on the left, and purest white reflection on the corner toward the right, and every shade of gray in-between.

The photographer for this public domain image was Laura Gilpin (1891-1979), well-known for her anthropologically oriented photographs of the southwestern states and Mexico. It was published/copyrighted in 1930, and the copyright was allowed to lapse when it was up for renewal in 1956, before the copyright law was amended to give longer protection. (Images as late as 1963 may be in the public domain, if they were copyrighted and published, but the copyright was not renewed). Laura Gilpin studied photography at the Clarence H White school in New York city, and published several books of photographs. In one, she wrote:

Many enter the field of photography with the impulse to record a scene. They often fail to realize that what they wish to do is to record the emotion felt upon viewing that scene.