Carlton Watkins, Equipment and In General...

[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-Watk...s%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.