In Focus: Carleton Watkins, Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, The J. Paul Getty Museum: Los Angeles, California, 1997, 144 pp., 1880
[p. 68] Plate 31
Beach and Bathing House at Santa Monica 1880
Albumen print 11.1 x 17.8 cm 94.XM.30.2
On June 26, 1880, Watkins wrote a less-than-happy letter to his wife from Santa Monica, California. “I am down here by the illimitable and ever restless sea, and it does nothing but sigh and moan and blow, blow, blow . . . I did not put on my overcoat and nearly froze.” This photograph of the beach was taken from a pier extending out into the Pacific.
Watkins’s boudoir-style pictures were an adaptation of the more traditional 5-by-8-inch landscape panels commonly used by photographers during the 1880s and 1890s. However, instead of having the image occupy the entire print area, Watkins masked the view to include wide print margins, frequently with a domed top. Letterpress captions were imprinted on the mounts (tourists could purchase these views mounted or unmounted). Watkins’s most interesting innovation, however, was a specially designed stereoscopic camera that took a large glass plate measuring 5 1/2 x 14 inches. He could thus make the equivalent of two negatives (a stereo pair) at each exposure. From each end of the plate; he produced prints that were approximaely 5 x 7 inches. By using the proper printing masks, he could create stereographic and/or individual cabinet and boudoir prints, all from the same original negative.
Beach and Bathing House at Santa Monica, Watkins, 1880
Santa Monica Beach and Beach Clubs, Watkins, 1880
