Three Brothers, Yosemite

Carleton E. Watkins captured Yosemite's granite peaks and forest landscape using albumen print photography, a labor-intensive process requiring glass negatives and chemical coating. Watkins's large-format images, made during the Gold Rush era, brought Western wilderness to Eastern audiences through stereoscopic cards and bound albums. His work established landscape photography as a documentary medium, influencing both artistic and scientific understanding of the American West before the region became a national park.