Plate 33.Star Oil Works, San Fernando District, S.P.R.R., 1880
Albumen stereograph
The discovery of oil in the San Fernando Valley dates from the 1850s, but large scale exploitation did not occur until the 1890s. While on his 1880 trip along the route of the Southern Pacific Railroad Watkins made some of the very earliest pictures of the fledgling petroleum industry in Southern California. Because of his work in the mining industry in Nevada, he was very experienced at photographing the machinery and trappings of industrial activity.
This partcular image of a California Star Oil Works Company well is oddly portraitlike inasmuch as the derrick stands aloof from a hillside backdrop patterned with scrub vegetation. This feeling is further reinforced through the use of a long-focus lens, which brings the tower closer to the viewer and compresses the space between foreground and background.
