I was recently reading about famed photographer Carleton Watkins who took a lot of the famous early photographs of the National Park System, and I came across this shot “Yosemite Valley from the Best General View” from 1866. I noticed that it was taken from a similar vantage point as one of the photos I took from Yosemite last year, so I tried to overlay them for comparisons sake. The result is pretty cool.
One of the great things about nature is that it doesn’t change very much over the years. While the 142 year gap between Mr. Watkins’ photo and mine might seem like a long time, it is a pretty insignificant period of time in the life of this beautiful place. With that being said, I am very thankful for our National Park System’s ability to keep places like this in their natural state; as it doesn’t take very long to build condos or hotels that would change this site forever.
Tags: Carleton Watkins, Yosemite Valley
