View from House Top, San Jose. Albumen print, Getty Museum. Public domain photograph.

Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) was an American photographer best known for his photographs of the American West in the 19th century. Born in Oneonta, New York, he moved to California in 1849 during the Gold Rush. He worked as a carpenter and teamster before taking up photography in the early 1860s. Watkins is best known for his photographs of Yosemite Valley, which he first visited in 1861. His images of the valley helped popularise it as a tourist destination and played a key role in the creation of Yosemite National Park. Watkins also photographed other areas of the West, including the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon and the mining towns of Nevada. Watkins' photographs were highly regarded for their technical excellence and artistic composition. He used large-format cameras and glass-plate negatives to produce detailed images of great depth and clarity. His work was exhibited internationally and won numerous awards. In later life Watkins suffered financial setbacks and lost much of his work in a fire. He died in poverty in 1916, but his legacy as one of America's greatest photographers lives on.

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