Devil's Canyon, Geysers, Looking Down 1868 - 1870

Carleton Watkins captured Devil's Canyon with his camera, creating a print measuring approximately 40 by 52 centimeters. Watkins was among the many 19th-century photographers drawn to the American West, a landscape imbued with promise and, of course, complicated histories. His photographs, like this one, not only documented the landscape, but also played a role in shaping perceptions and policies related to westward expansion. Watkins’s images omit the violence and displacement of indigenous peoples that was part of the Western landscape, and instead promoted an idea of untouched wilderness awaiting settlement and exploitation. Consider the sublime quality in this image. The canyon's vastness, the ethereal geysers, it evokes a sense of awe, but also one of potential, inviting viewers to imagine the possibilities that lay within this ‘virgin’ territory. This photograph is not just a record; it's a narrative, one that elides the complex cultural realities of the West while inviting a narrative of manifest destiny.