Getty Museum
Malakoff Diggings, North Bloomfield, Nevada County, California
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
- 1871
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
In this highly detailed overview, Carleton Watkins looked down upon a hydraulic mining operation and recorded the early intrusion of industry upon the landscape. A layered, dense forest surrounds the mine, which recedes into the background, subordinated to the stripped and littered foreground. A diagonal pipe, ferrying precious resources to an unseen destination, bisects the bleak clearing. A lone building in the upper left center peeks out from a crevice, giving a sense of scale. Watkins's lens, encompassing a vast depth of field, sharply drew each stone and pebble in the mine, each striation of rock.
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