[Yosemite National Park, California]

Carleton E. Watkins

ca. 1878 · Albumen silver print from glass negative · Photographs

This exceptionally rare untitled album features seventy-three circular-format views made seventeen years after Watkins first photographed at Mariposa Grove and Yosemite. Half of the photographs are studies of the great sequoia trees in Calaveras Grove, the other half are landscapes of Yosemite. Watkins used a stereo camera with oversize plates then masked the negatives during the printing process. Here, to take full advantage of the circular shape of the negatives, he positioned his camera directly below one of the valley’s ubiquitous black oaks that provided food (acorns) for the Miwok peoples living in the northern Sierra. Although smaller than Watkins’s mammoth-plate views and not in appearing three-dimensional like his stereographs (seen nearby), the unusual print format gave the artist fresh ideas about using compositional strategies to create depth.

Artist

Carleton E. Watkins

Date

ca. 1878

Medium

Albumen silver print from glass negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005