with daguerreotypist Robert Vance
1850s – moves to California
1854 – works for Robert Vance as camera operator
1858 – opens studio; begins travelling and photographing the American West
1861 – begins photographing Yosemite Valley with a mammoth-plate camera; photographs instrumental in making Yosemite a national park
1860-90 –commissioned by US government for geological surveys; works for the Central and Southern Pacific Railroads and Las Mariposas Mines; photographs sold through Watkins’s studio and exhibited internationally
1906 – all of Watkins’s negatives destroyed in San Francisco earthquake fire
Oregon (1868); Utah (1873); Nevada (1876); Arizona (1880); Pacific Northwest (1882-83); Idaho and Montana (1884-85)
US Government; Central and Southern Pacific Railroads; Las Mariposas MinesUS Government; Central and Southern Pacific Railroads; Las Mariposas Mines
Naef, Weston J. Carleton Watkins in Yosemite. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008
Nickel, Douglas R. Carleton Watkins: the Art of Perception. New York and London: Harry N. Abrams, 1999
Watkins, Carleton E., Weston J. Naef, and Christine Hult-Lewis. Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011