During these years, he traveled further afield in search of new subjects: he sailed to the barren Farallon Islands, twenty-six miles off the California coast; he photographed the geysers of Sonoma County; he traveled to Mount Shasta in the northern part of the state; and he documented the massive hydraulic gold mining operations in the Sierra Nevada foothills (Watkins' Life and Works, 2010). Watkins received support in his travels from his friend Collis Huntington, a principal in the Central Pacific Railroad, who offered him a flatcar to carry his van filled with photographic materials. By 1869 the Central Pacific line had pressed through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, allowing Watkins to take photographs of the wilderness landscapes that could now be seen by railroad travelers. Throughout the final years of his career, Watkins' fortunes declined. After the banking crisis in 1875, he was required to turn over his gallery and entire stock of negatives to a creditor. Without any inventory, he began again with a New Series of photographs, which included a wide variety of subjects and formats (Watkins' Life and Works, 2010).

With the railroad success in Southern California and Arizona, Watkins was able...

In California, he took pictures of peaches and other crops grown with the help of new irrigation systems, and in inaccessible parts of the West, he continued to take pictures for land records. His travels, began to be reduced by his failing health, and by his marriage at the age of fifty and the succeeding birth of two children (Watkins' Life and Works, 2010).
References

Friedel, Megan K. (2010). Carleton Emmons Watkins (1829-1916). Retrieved July 31, 2010,

from The Oregon Encyclopedia Web site:

http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/watkins_carleton_emmons_1829_1916_/

Hill, Eric. (2004). Carleton E. Watkins. Retrieved August 5, 2010, from Web site:

http://cprr.org/Museum/Stereo_World/Watkins/index.html

The Steroviews of Carlton Watkins. (2010). Retrieved July 31, 2010, from Carlton…