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[Thurlow Lodge - Tent and Family Group]

Creator

American Photographer · 1829–1916

AmbrotypistPublisherArtist

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,

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Date: 1874
Medium: Albumen silver print
Culture: American
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

The arrival of Carleton Watkins at a grand residence for a picture session was surely a much-anticipated event. People would have been transfixed watching him erect his two-by three-foot camera fitted with a twenty-five pound lens. When photographing Thurlow Lodge, the home of a former California governor and United States senator, Watkins was expected to concentrate on the buildings and grounds. In this instance, he recognized that a party of seven family members under an umbrella contributed to the picturesque quality of the estate. Waiting to attend to this affluent family is the apron-clad maid, barely visible in the shadow to the left of the palm trees.

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