Carlton Watkins, Equipment and In General...

[Mark Sawyer]

Having recently fallen into an example of a lens used by Carleton Watkins, a Mammoth-size (16-inch) Harrison & Schnitzer Globe Lens, I've of course wasted hours reading all the Watkins threads here and on the 'net in general. Adding to the general knowledge, here's a photo purportedly of Watkins' camera:

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g139/Owen21k/Carleton-Watkins-camera-Yosemite-250-216-42_zps7iy2jprt.jpg (http://s55.photobucket.com/user/Owen21k/media/Carleton-Watkins-camera-Yosemite-250-216-42_zps7iy2jprt.jpg.html)

from the site: http://www.undiscovered-yosemite.com/yosemite-photographers.html

I have no idea if that's Watkins' camera or not, but the lens definitely looks like my Globe, and it's a pretty rare and distinctive lens, so I'm inclined to think it is. However, by the scale of the lens I'd say that's an 8x10 to 9x13 camera.

Here's the only other image I've run across claiming to show Watkins' camera, and it doesn't show much, on top of his wagon at the upper left...

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g139/Owen21k/ms-1_zpshb7im1uc.jpg (http://s55.photobucket.com/user/Owen21k/media/ms-1_zpshb7im1uc.jpg.html)

from the site: http://cosweb.siskiyous.edu/shasta/art/cla.htm

About the mammoth (18x22) camera, I've found numerous references that Watkins had it custom built by a San Francisco cabinet maker. He's also reported to have used 14x21, 9x13, 8x10, whole-plate and stereo formats.

And the lenses he's known to have used:
a Grubb-C Landscape Lens, (a 15-inch achromatic doublet rated for 8x10 to 10x12),
a Harrison & Schnitzer 16-inch Globe lens, (rated for 19x23),
and an unknown Dallmeyer.

If anyone can add any information, please do.

[karl french]

You might try contacting Luther Gerlach. Considering his love of vintage cameras of late 19th century and wet plate I suspect he might has some information.

[mdarnton]

I suppose you are aware of this book:
https://shop.getty.edu/products/carleton-watkins-978-1606060056

I saw the exhibit at the Getty (is it a permanent show or a one-off? I don't know), and it was incredible! I remember gigantic prints where you could keep moving closer and closer, seeing more and more. Such detail, and it blew me away.

[mdarnton]

Check out halfway down the page, here: http://arthistoryunstuffed.com/carleton-watkins-1829-1916/

The picture, direct link: http://arthistoryunstuffed.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/carleton-watkins-mammoth-camera.jpg

Another article. Uncertainty about whether it's the real camera or not, complete with a LF troll post at the bottom:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2008/10/carleton-watkin.html

Another mammoth shot, from the wrong side. It is Watkins or Jackson? More than one mammoth? :
http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/mjodonnell/cojo232/photo/photo07.html

[stawastawa]

Also consider contacting some of the museums on the west coast. I know the Portland Art Museum here has much of his work, especially since he spent some time here around the Gorge. They may have further information or images or connections to resources that they could help you with.

~nicholas

[Vaughn]

As does the Oakland Museum of Art.

[Mark Sawyer]

Check out halfway down the page, here: http://arthistoryunstuffed.com/carleton-watkins-1829-1916/

The picture, direct link: http://arthistoryunstuffed.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/carleton-watkins-mammoth-camera.jpg

Another article. Uncertainty about whether it's the real camera or not, complete with a LF troll post at the bottom:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2008/10/carleton-watkin.html

Another mammoth shot, from the wrong side. It is Watkins or Jackson? More than one mammoth? :
http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/mjodonnell/cojo232/photo/photo07.html

The camera in the museum has been cited in a few places as a "reproduction in the style of the camera Watkins used". I believe it was borrowed from a modern wet plate photographer for the exhibit. Watkins camera was probably lost along with much of his work in the 1906 San Francisco fire.

Yup, that last image is of William Henry Jackson and his mammoth plate camera.

[Mark Sawyer]

I suppose you are aware of this book:
https://shop.getty.edu/products/carleton-watkins-978-1606060056

I saw the exhibit at the Getty (is it a permanent show or a one-off? I don't know), and it was incredible! I remember gigantic prints where you could keep moving closer and closer, seeing more and more. Such detail, and it blew me away.

Yup, I have that book in my lap right now! It seems like Watkins produced several lifetimes worth of work in only one. Wish I could have seen the exhibit... :(

[Mark Sawyer]

Also consider contacting some of the museums on the west coast. I know the Portland Art Museum here has much of his work, especially since he spent some time here around the Gorge...


As does the Oakland Museum of Art.

Watkins got down to the Arizona Territory too, photographing Views in Tucson, Tombstone, Yuma, San Xavier Mission, the ruins at Casa Grande, and a number of desert cactus studies.

[Jim Jones]

Another stunning book of Watkins' mammoth photographs is Carleton Watkins: The Stanford Albums, published by Stanford University Press in 2014. About 150 prints are reproduced at about half size. Unfortunately, the several essays mention little about Watkins' camera equipment.

[David Schaller]

Another stunning book of Watkins' mammoth photographs is Carleton Watkins: The Stanford Albums, published by Stanford University Press in 2014. About 150 prints are reproduced at about half size. Unfortunately, the several essays mention little about Watkins' camera equipment.

I saw that exhibition in Palo Alto, and it was amazing. The book is very good.

[Jim Jones]

A new book is an affordable addition to any fan of Watkins, https://www.amazon.com/Carleton-Watkins-Making-West-American/dp/0520287983/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ZKD2Y8DZI8UK&keywords=carleton+watkins+making+the+american+west&qid=1569081229&sprefix=carleton+watkins%2Caps%2C188&sr=8-1. It is meticulously researched with an extensive bibliography and useful index. The illustrations are not large, but useful for reference. The author, Tyler Green, is an art critic and historian, but obviously not a large format photographer. His mention of equipment and photo processes is skimpy. The book excels in placing Watkins in context among the people who made 19th century California. I recommend it to anyone wanting the probably best biographical information we have on the rather elusive Watkins.

[Tin Can]

Amazingly cheap 1st edition 536 page Hardcover but only 6 x 1.8 x 9 inches...

I'll have it Monday.

Thanks for posting!

[Tom Monego]

I heard Tyler Green speak at the Marsh - Billings - Rockefeller National Historic Park a weekend or so ago. Seems all of Watkin's negatives and correspondence was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake just days before Stanford University was going to pick up all of this. Green said this was more detective work than historical. Frederick Billings was a Watkins patron and the park archives had a lot of information on Watkins early photography years.
The park had 18 mammoth print reproductions on display. Seeing them full size was better than the reproductions in the book. Green also says Watkins built his own mammoth camera, his father was a cabinet maker and he had assisted his father before going to California.

[Drew Wiley]

It's certainly encouraging to see so much renewed interest in Watkins and several new books out. Unfortunately, so far, most of the pontification in them either tries to pin him down to some expansion into the West mentality, or some other superficial set of information like technique. Nobody I've run into in such literature seems to understand or be able to articulate what made certain of his remarkable compositions tick. I'd sure like to get ahold of the book out on his Mammoth images, but can't justify paying that amount since I've already seen a number of those big contact prints in person.