Ellsworth and Emery Kolb, photographers with a studio on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, set out to create a complete photographic record of the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers by running the rivers themselves. Arriving in Green River, Wyoming, in early September 1911, they brought with them a relatively new invention, a movie camera, and became the first to take moving pictures of the rivers and canyons. Ellsworth Kolb later recalled that the people of Green River City came to inspect, advise, or jeer at them, offering stories of disaster and death rather than encouragement. After their boat arrived on the Union Pacific Railroad and James Fagin, a young man from San Francisco hired to help with camp gear, joined them, the expedition launched on September 9th, 1911. The brothers traveled all the way to the Gulf of California without incident, then returned to their photo studio and lived at the Grand Canyon until they died in the 1970's.