Newly Released: Carleton Watkins photographs

Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) photographed some amazing landscapes throughout California and the broader West Coast, especially in Yosemite. Originally from New York, the gold rush drew Watkins to California in 1851. While he failed to strike it rich in gold, Watkins became involed in photography and became a well known landscape photographer. Stanford has newly released some of these digitized landscapes from three works by Watkins: Photographs of the Pacific coast, Photographs of the Columbia river and Oregon, and Photographs of the Yosemite Valley. Find a sampling below and we hope you'll browse through the full works as well!

A sample of mammoth plates from Photographs of the Yosemite Valley:

"Section of the Giant Grizzly"

"Cathedral Rocks"

"The Lower Yosemite Fall"

A sample of mammoth plates from Photographs of the Pacific Coast:

"Devil's Canon, Geysers, Looking down"

"Seal Rocks, Cliff House"

A sample of mammoth plates from Photographs of the Columbia river and Oregon:

"Castle Rock. Columbia River"

"O.S.N. Co.'s works. Columbia River"