Getty Museum
Cathedral Rock - 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
- Object ID
- 5e3cf666-4024-4250-b65b-7a911c7782ef
From the Getty Museum record
Early visitors to Yosemite saw the valley in religious and historical terms, likening the primordial geological features to the great ruins of Western civilization. Sites such as the Egyptian pyramids and the Roman Colosseum had become familiar through stereographs by European photographers. In this photograph of Cathedral Rock, named for its resemblance to Gothic architecture, Watkins emphasized the monumental quality of the towering granite spires that almost entirely fill the frame.
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