Carleton Watkins Valparaíso, 1849
was a magnet for English-speaking travelers. Newly arrived fortune hunters—most of them from North America—landed at the municipal wharf after many weeks of shipboard confinement after the tedious journey around Cape Horn. The new arrivals prowled the nearby streets in search of fresh food, entertainment, and sightseeing. A visit to one of the daguerreian studios located in the custom house district was among the must-do activities. Two of Valparaíso’s daguerreian studios in 1849 were English-speaking establishments-that of William Helsby from Liverpool, England, and that of Vance, who was trained in Boston.
When he arrived in Valparaíso, Carleton was nineteen going-on twenty, an immigrant from an isolated village in central New York State where the nearest photographer was located three hours away by stagecoach in the county seat, Cooperstown. Photography in 1849 was a new occupation full of uncertainty by comparison to the reliable hotel business operated by his family in Oneonta, New York. Carleton had to learn and master a set of alien procedures with little or no preparation.
Daguerreotypes were made on small sheets of copper that had been electroplated with a coating of silver by the stateside manufacturer. There were no manufacturers of photographic materials anywhere in Latin America at this time and all supplies had to be imported.[14] The variety of implements required to prepare and sensitize the silvered-copper plate are shown in [Fig. 4]. Step one was to polish the silvered-copper plates to remove accumulated oxidation and other imperfections using a moist powdered limestone and silica compound marketed under the generic name "rottenstone."
Next the plates were made light-sensitive using the vapors of iodine [Fig. 5]. Each step of the multi-step process to prepare a daguerreian plate for a portrait exposure would require 15-25 minutes. [15] Successfully using the tools of the trade required skill and dexterity, procedures that Carleton would perfect with practice in the months he operated the camera at calle de la Aduana no. 113 during Robert Vance's travels north to the lands of the ancient Inca civilization.
Once the customer showed up—fortune-hunters in 1849 were nearly all men--he was directed to the posing room that was specially constructed with tall windows facing south for the soft indirect daylight preferred by
[14] See Note 9.
[15]The steps in making a daguerreotype are detailed by Matthew R. Isenburg, "The Making of a Daguerreotype," http://www.daguerre.org/resource/exhibit/brochure.html . With thanks to Mike Robinson for his guidance.