First View of the Yosemite Valley from the Mariposa Trail

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

In the 1860s, Carleton Watkins was the first to document the untouched wilderness that would become Yosemite National Park. Transporting his fragile equipment on mule or carriage through difficult terrain, Watkins used a "mammoth-plate" camera whose glass negatives measured up to 18 by 22 inches and yielded remarkably detailed prints of the same size. He favored spectacular compositions with dramatic spatial depth. In this photograph, Watkins depicted Yosemite Valley's immense span through the receding planes of mountains and the giant Sequoia trees that frame them. Watkins printed more than 1,100 mammoth-plate photographs over the course of his career. Unfortunately, the majority of his glass negatives and prints were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906.

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