Charles Leander Weed

Charles Leander Weed (* 1824 in New York; † 1903 in Oakland, California ) was an American landscape photographer.

Life

The gold rush in California moved Weed, 1854 to travel to the West Coast. He settled in San Francisco and worked for a time as an assistant to George J. Watson in his daguerreotype studio. Around 1855 he took over the collodion wet-plate technique by Frederick Scott Archer and Gustave Le Gray and modified it for his portrait photography.

Through his work Weed made ​​the acquaintance of James Hutchings, who are proven first tourists of the Yosemite Valley were with some other business people. Inspired by the beauty of unspoiled nature they sat down - under Hutchings ' leadership - for the development of a; the result was the establishment in 1864 of Yosemite National Park.

In Summer 1859 Weed came along with Hutchings in Yosemite Valley and photographed this for the first time and in semptember same year he showed his photographs at an exhibition in San Francisco. The photographer George Fiske and Carleton Watkins came in these years also in this valley and photographed, but if they took a trip together there remains unproven.

From 1860 Weed undertook extensive travels naxh Asia. For a short time he even held a studio in the British colony of Hong Kong and several weeks, he traveled to the island of Hawaii. In 1867 he was invited to come to Paris and to show to the world exhibition his paintings.

In 1872 he toured the Yosemite Valley to photograph one more time, maybe he was accompanied by Eadweard Muybridge. In the following years, Weed took fewer trips and settled in Oakland. In the following years he occupied himself more with the artistic and technical improvement of picture taking.