Getty Museum
Tutucanula - El Capitan 3600 ft. Yo Semite
Creator
Carleton WatkinsAmerican Photographer · 1829–1916
All works by this person →At twenty, Carleton Watkins headed out to California to make his fortune. After working as a daguerreotype operator in San Jose, he established his own practice and soon made his first visit to the Yosemite Valley. There he made thirty mammoth plate and one hundred stereograph views that were among the first photographs of Yosemite seen in the East. Partly on the strength of Watkins's photographs,
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1861
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
While the monumental facade of El Capitan looms in the background, a thin decaying trunk in the foreground demands the viewer's attention. In nature, where changes can occur in seconds or centuries, Carleton Watkins found the perfect subjects to convey a theme of transience versus permanence. The same decaying tree appears in this image and its pendant, *River View--Down the Valley,* which was taken in the same location with the camera directed about thirty degrees to the east.
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