View from the Sentinel Dome, Yosemite

Carleton E. Watkins

1865–66 · Albumen silver prints from glass negatives · Photographs

Carleton Watkins made his name with views of Yosemite Valley, which he photographed repeatedly over a twenty-year period, beginning in 1861. By that time, he was a virtuoso practitioner of the difficult wet-collodion process using "mammoth" glass plates, which rendered the vastness of the landscape and its infinite details with unsurpassed scope and clarity. During a visit to Yosemite in 1865-66, Watkins ascended the Sentinel Dome. He made a series of three photographs of this unparalleled view, each an integral, self-sufficient picture. When seen together, they form a broad and encompassing embrace of the valley.

Artist

Carleton E. Watkins

Date

1865–66

Medium

Albumen silver prints from glass negatives

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1989