Mirror View, Yosemite Valley, Mariposa County, Cal.
1861/76
Medium
Albumen print, stereo
Dimensions
Each image: 7.9 × 7.9 cm (3 1/8 × 3 1/8 in.); Card: 8.7 × 17.6 cm (3 7/16 × 6 15/16 in.)
Classification
stereograph (albumen)
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
145389
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Stereographs were made by taking two photographs of the same scene with lenses about two and a half inches apart to match the distance between human eyes. Viewed through a stereoscope, the two images combine to give the illusion of depth. Enormously popular as items for both entertainment and education, millions of stereographs were produced from 1850 to 1930, documenting disasters, expeditions, monuments, and exotic locations. Carleton Watkins first photographed Yosemite in 1861, and his views ...
About the Artist
Carleton Watkins · 1829–1916
Carleton Watkins (1829–1916) was an American photographer whose majestic landscape photographs of the American West, particularly of Yosemite Valley, rank among the most important images in the history of photography. Born in Oneonta, New York, he moved to California during the Gold Rush era and learned photography in San Francisco in the late 1850s. In 1861, Watkins made his first trip to Yosemi...