PBA Galleries

Original albumen photograph. Captioned in the negative, with number 89, and Taber's imprint. 15½x20½, mounted on modern backing sheet.

Mammoth plate view of Mount Davidson in Yosemite, with a waterfall at the left. Isaiah West Taber, 1830-1912, first came to California during the Gold Rush, returned to his native New Bedford in 1854, and moved back to California ten years later. After working with Bradley and Rulofson and other San Francisco photographers, he opened his own business around 1875. Besides being an accomplished photographer in his own right, he also published photographs taken by others, most notably Yosemite scenes by Carleton Watkins, whose stock of negatives Taber acquired when Watkins faced bankruptcy in the mid-1870's.