YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park is arguably one of the most universally recognized and value preserved areas in the world. It is considered one of the “crown jewels” in the United States National Park system, due to its dramatic, awesome scenery and the extent of its wild nature. Yosemite Valley is, at its heart, where the Merced River carves and dances its way through a deep cleft in the massive, granite, foundation-cum super's structure that rises vertically 3000-4000 feet above it. The valley is approximately 8 miles long and from ¼ to mile in width, ringed with numerous waterfalls propelled from lush hanging valleys, gliding in dazzling, bright-jeweled, free-fall ribbons, and then thundering into gathering basins below. At 4,000 feet elevation in the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Valley is populated by such life as ponderosa pines, incense cedars, black oaks, alders, cottonwoods, Douglas firs, lush meadows, ground squirrels, deer, mountain lions and black bears.

The fundamental role of landscape photography in the creation of Yosemite as the world's first wilderness area created “for the benefit of the people, for their resort and recreation, to hold them inalienable for all time” (Yosemite Grant, 1864) points to the crucial role of images in environmental politics and confirms that such image politics did not start with the advent of television. Survey photographer and Yosemite's first serious documentarian Carlton Watkins embodied the multiple discourses of his time—romantic and artistic, to be sure, but also commercial, industrial, and technological. This reflected in the breadth of his subjects, from the wilderness landscapes of Yosemite to the industrial mining at Mariposa. Watkins established dual legacies as both founder of landscape photography and chronicler of industrial progress, celebrator of sublime nature and creator of the technological sublime.

In “Yosemite Falls,” the beautiful literally frames the sublime. An idyllic meadow occupies over a third of the photograph. In the immediate foreground is a flat space ringed by flowering plants, grasses, and four trees, resembling a picnic site. The trees occupy the left and right sides of the frame, creating a frame within the frame. Within this treed frame, positioned in the upper center of the photograph, is the spectacular sight of Yosemite Falls cascading down the cliffs of the canyon. The cascading plume rives the canyon walls and links to the washed-out sky.

This valley has endeared itself to humans for eons. Yosemite Valley has been a human habitation and tourist resort since long before 1864, when it was set aside as a Park. Archeological evidence reveals human occupation of the Merced River Corridor in Yosemite Valley since between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. Some of the ancients were permanent residents, but most probably transient, coming to the mountains when weather permitted access, to escape the heat of the Central Valley and Mono basin, to gather and hunt for necessities of life, to trade with neighboring peoples, and, no doubt, simply to enjoy the scenery and celebrate ...