Bridal Veil, Yosemite
Medium
albumen print from wet collodion negative
Dimensions
image: 40.1 × 52.4 cm · matted: 61 × 76.2 cm
Classification
Photograph
Department
Photography
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
Accession Number
1992.12
Tags
About this artwork
The grand scale of the American West was difficult to convey in early photographs, which were intimately scaled objects meant for the hand and the album. Starting in the late 1850s, a handful of photographers shooting landscapes and historical settings began producing “mammoth” prints, including the San Francisco-based Carleton E. Watkins. The seemingly gargantuan scale of these prints allowed a new, immersive relationship between the viewer and the image, enhancing that “you are there” feeling.