Geological Survey of California: The Yosemite Book

Between 1860 and 1874, a team headed by Josiah D. Whitney surveyed the state of California in order to gather and circulate information about the natural resources of California. Most of the photographs in the volume featured here were taken by America photographer Carleton E. Watkins. As you contemplate the photographs, remember that Watkins used the wet collodion process, and therefore would have had to carry with him all of the glass plate negatives he intended to use, a large-format camera and tripod, all the chemicals required for preparing and developing his plates, and a portable darkroom. The photographs are printed on albumen paper and pasted into the book.

Though the photographs included here originated in a scientific project intended to survey the land, they drew on conventions for representing sublime landscapes that had grown popular in the late-eighteenth century. To get a sense of the characteristics of the sublime, compare these photographs with picturesque drawings by William Gilpin or to the picturesque views included in souvenir books like Views of Portree.

The sublime has been a recurring theme in landscape photography, and perhaps this is not surprising. A sublime landscape is one that is awe-inspiring in its grandeur, almost unbelievable, and so we can expect that a photographer might take a picture in order to offer proof of such a view. Photographers other than Watkins known for their sublime landscapes include Ansel Adams and Edward Burtynsky. 

Watkins's photographs have served various purposes depending on their contexts. In the introduction to this volume on Yosemite, for example, Whitney wrote that the purpose of the publication is “to call the attention of the public to the scenery of California, and to furnish a reliable guide to some of its most interesting features.” The photographs included here had the desired effect; Watkins’s sublime photographs of Yosemite are often credited with “saving Yosemite.” Almost a century later, Ansel Adams’s photographs of Yosemite continued this relationship between photography and nature conservation.

While Watkins’s photographs fit easily within a geological survey, they have also found a home in art collections, including the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. These photographs therefore provide a good example of how “photography’s discursive spaces,” to borrow art critic Rosalind Krauss’s words, can change the meaning of a photograph.