Charles Roscoe Savage (August 16, 1832 – February 4, 1909)[1] was a British-born landscape and portrait photographer most notable for his images of the American West.

Savage converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in his youth while living in England.

He traveled to Salt Lake City with his family and opened up his Art Bazar where he sold many of his photographs.

Savage concentrated his photographic efforts primarily on family portraits, landscapes, and documentary views.

[5] Savage worked part-time as a secretary for the Southampton mission president, collecting and recording donations.

[9][6] In the spring of 1860, with the Brown Company Savage traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah Territory with his family.

[10]In 1861 he established a photography studio with a partner, Marsena Cannon, an early Utah daguerreotypist and photographer.

Ottinger painted scenery for the Salt Lake Theatre and took photos of local buildings and landscapes.

Savage became increasingly popular as a portrait photographer and prominent people in Utah commissioned him to take their photos.

He was also an active member of the 20th ward, sang in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, joined the Nauvoo Legion, and lectured on various subjects at the local Literary Institute.

Several times, he made a collage of the baby photographs he had taken over the years, and often families with featured children would buy a copy.

To protect his work from copyright infringement, he retained the original glass plate negatives of his photographs, giving him more control over their use.

[17] While Andrew J. Russell was documenting the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1868, he met and befriended Savage.

[18] By 1866 Savage's Views of the Great West, a stereoscopic series, was sold by the Union Pacific and Denver & Rio Grande Western railroads.

In San Francisco, he met Carleton Watkins, who described his method for producing large works by placing developed negatives in a water bath until he was ready to finish them.

[23] Other well-known Savage images include pictures of the Great Basin tribes, especially the Paiute and Shoshone.

[28] Savage took a second wife in 1876, Mary Emma Fowler, a twenty-four-year-old who died five years later in 1881 of "pelvic cellulitis".

The passing of the Edmunds Act slowed the local economy in Salt Lake City; however, tourism kept Savage's Art Bazar financially secure.

He was able to operate at an increasing speed and started quickly retaking the photographs that had helped make him famous.

[31] In April 1892 Savage photographed the completion of the Salt Lake City LDS temple's exterior.

As Savage grew older, he handed the responsibility of the Art Bazar to his sons, Ralph and George.

His photographs covered fifty years of changes "from the early stages of the Old West to the beginnings of the Industrial Age."

Savage's sons, Ralph, Roscoe, and George,[33] continued running the Art Bazar after his death.

Ralph Savage was chosen by the LDS Church to photograph the interior of the Salt Lake Temple.

The Savage family re-opened the Art Bazar to the public but mainly sold novelty items and picture frames rather than photographs.