![[Minerva Terraces, Mammoth Hot Springs National Park]](https://media.getty.edu/iiif/image/2a2cdb3a-fa50-4fdf-bec9-94b26f0d50bb/full/808,/0/default.jpg)
Getty Museum
[Minerva Terraces, Mammoth Hot Springs National Park]
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
- about 1884–1885
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
At first glance, this image appears to be ordered along the horizontal lines of stone plateaus and distant rolling hills. In fact, Carleton Watkins used two diagonal lines beginning at the lower corners of the photograph and converging in the center of the image as the foundation for the composition. The result is a triangle that accentuates the intersection of multiple terraces. In 1884 Watkins was hired to photograph mining works in the Montana region. During the trip, however, he also photographed natural monuments such as Minerva's Terrace in the Mammoth Hot Springs area of Yellowstone National Park. Although the picture gives the impression of isolated and untouched "wilderness," at least four buildings are visible in the distance.
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