Dialogues Among Giants - Getty Center and Carleton Watkins

"Watkins was best known for his photographs of Yosemite, but he also took his camera to the silver mines of Nevada and Arizona, and up and down the Pacific coast. Throughout his career he applied his understanding of the elements of landscape as art. His early work with mining subjects proved to be excellent training for his eventual vision of landscape as a powerful counterbalance to the fragility of human existence. He harnessed the elements of visual form—line, shape, mass, outline, perspective, viewpoint, and light—to enliven often static motifs in nature."
From the exhibition, Dialogues Among Giants: Carleton Watkins and the Rise of Photography in California at the Getty Center, J. Paul Getty Museum. Link to an informative slide show and accompanying exhibition publications. 

In Focus: Carleton Watkins

Carleton Watkins in Yosemite