The subject line is from the June 2016 issue of Smithsonian magazine
which has a short article about photographer Carleton Watkins. Maybe
the greatest photographer you've probably never heard of. Watkins first
photographed Yosemite in the summer of 1861 using 18x22" glass plates.
His photographs were supposedly instrumental in Lincoln signing a bill
in 1864 that protected the Yosemite Valley as "inviolable", well before
the formation of the National Park System.
You can find an extensive article about him on Wiki here:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carleton_Watkins>
It's not a particularly happy story as Watkins lost much of his work to
his creditor and to free-loaders who copied his work. At the time
photographs in the US were not protected by copyright law.
Ultimately he lost most of his work when his studio on Market Street was
destroyed by the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906.
A tidbit you won't find in the Wiki article is that Ansel Adams also
went through the San Francisco quake... at age 4. He was thrown against
a wall which gave him his permanently crooked nose.
Chuck Norcutt
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