[Yosemite National Park, California] 1876 - 1880

Carleton Watkins made this photograph of Yosemite National Park in California using an albumen print. This mesmerizing landscape presents a seemingly untouched vista, yet its historical context reveals a more complex narrative. Watkins’s photographs, while celebrated for their aesthetic beauty, also played a role in promoting the idea of manifest destiny and westward expansion, obscuring the displacement and dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands. The sublime grandeur of Yosemite, captured through Watkins's lens, encouraged a romanticized view of the American West, fueling the desire for settlement and resource extraction. The reflective quality of the water invites a moment of introspection, prompting us to consider how our perceptions of nature are shaped by cultural narratives and historical forces. It asks us to reflect on our relationship with the land and our responsibility to acknowledge the complex histories embedded within these landscapes.