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While the photographs in Carleton Watkins: The Stanford Albums represent the magical moments when Watkins successfully exposed mammoth plate negatives to light, the exhibition's interactive kiosks--or cartographic accompaniments--help us remember the moments when Watkins was a real person in real space, navigating his way through the landscapes of the American West.
 
The kiosks were created when three Stanford research centers collectively answered the question, "what is the greater spatial context in which Watkins was working?" Using specific images as clues for piecing Watkins's world back together, we generated a map of these images with mapping and virtual landscape software, including Natural Scene Designer, ArcGIS, and Google Earth. We hope the kiosks lend this exhibition the stately and innovative air that Watkins gave to his photographs nearly 150 years ago. 

 

 

Nicholas Bauch

Post-Doctoral Scholar, Stanford University

Bill Lane Center for the American West

Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis



Carleton Watkins Demonstration: Exhibition Technology

Thursday, May 22 at 5:30 pm, Cantor auditorium

Stanford students demonstrate the technology they created that lets visitors compare the Yosemite Valley captured by Carleton Watkins with today's views of the same landscapes. Read more

 

 

 

Carleton Watkins: The Stanford Albums 

Through August 17
This exhibition of more than 80 photographic prints by Carleton Watkins--America's most influential 19th-century landscape photographer--celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Yosemite Grant of 1864. The breathtaking prints capture the beauty of the Northern Pacific Coast's most majestic wilderness sites as well as the dramatic transformation of isolated territories due to exploration, settlement, logging, and mining. The prints were originally contained in three albums and have never before been the subject of an exhibition. Read more 


Read about all of the Cantor's exhibitionscollections, events, art tours, and family activities.  
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Images, top to bottom:
-A kiosk in the Carleton Watkins exhibition demonstrating the mapping technology. 
-Carleton Watkins (U.S.A., 1829-1916), The Lower Yosemite Fall, Yosemite, 1865-1866, from the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley. Albumen print. Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.
  

Reproduction of these images is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission from the copyright holder. � 2014 Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. All rights reserved.