Sentinel, 3270 Feet, Yosemite

Carleton Watkins captured Yosemite's granite monolith reflected in the Merced River, framing the landscape through dense coniferous forest. Using the mammoth-plate wet-collodion process—producing negatives 18 by 22 inches—Watkins created photographs of unprecedented scale and detail. His Yosemite series, exhibited nationally in the 1860s, established landscape photography as a fine art medium and shaped American understanding of the Sierra Nevada. These images influenced the federal government's decision to protect Yosemite Valley, demonstrating photography's power to document wilderness and inform public policy.