Lately, the ones between have been on my mind. Those folks not the originator in a certain discipline, but who made contributions to it and in turn inspired the next generation to make even greater contributions. The ones between get little acknowledgement or credit; indeed, most of them fade into history with scarcely a trace. Yet they are instrumental to progress in every field: science, technology, politics, sports, business, and the arts.
There are countless examples of the ones between. The one that caught my attention was a 19th and early 20th century landscape photographer whose primary subject was Yosemite Valley: George Fiske.
Born in New Hampshire in 1835, Fiske moved to Sacramento in the 1850s to clerk at his brother’s banking house, Thomas S. Fiske & Co. Evidence regarding his entry into the photography trade is scant, but by the early 1860s he had become a professional. In the late 1860s he was working as an assistant to Carleton E. Watkins at the latter’s Yo-Semite Gallery in San Francisco.
Watkins originated landscape photography in the late 1850s and was already famous when Fiske joined him. It was Watkins’ Mammoth Plate photographs (an impressive 18 X 22 inches, printed from glass negatives of the same size) of Yosemite Valley that influenced Congress in 1864 to establish the Yosemite Land Grant, the precursor to our National Parks. His subsequent photographs over the following decades cemented his reputation as the pre-eminent landscape photographer of the 19th century.
Fiske would remain with Watkins until 1874. In 1878, after a brief period as a rooming house proprietor, he began selling his own photographs, usually signed and numbered at the bottom of the glass negatives.
Though he probably visited Yosemite Valley previously, George Fiske moved there permanently in 1879, becoming the first photographer to live in the valley year round. About 1883, the Yosemite Valley Commissioners granted Fiske’s request to build a house and darkroom in Yosemite Village, then located on the south side of the valley. It would be his home for the next 35 years.
During those years, Fiske shot Yosemite in every season, from virtually every vantage point. Most of his photographs were “boudoir” size, approximately 5 X 8 inches: a departure from the giant Mammoth Plate prints of Watkins. He also stuck with photographs rather than the then-hugely popular stereovision slides that combined two images to create a 3-D effect in a viewer.
His photos represented an evolution in landscape photography. Watkins’ photos showed Yosemite Valley’s landscape unadorned. Fiske’s photos showed that same landscape, but also captured its drama.
In addition to selling photographs from his house, Fiske supplied the pictures used to illustrate In the Heart of the Sierras, a guide to Yosemite by local innkeeper James M. Hutchings.
Although his photographs were widely praised, life was not kind to George Fiske. In 1904, he lost two cameras, many glass negatives and most of his photographs to a house fire. Though he continued to shoot and sell Yosemite Valley pictures in the early 20th century, the advent of the box camera effectively put an end to his business. Suffering from a brain tumor and in terrible pain, he took his own life in 1918. After his death, his remaining glass negatives were acquired by Yosemite Park and Curry Company and stored in an abandoned sawmill. The building burned in 1943 and Fiske’s remaining work, except for those photographs in private collections, was lost.
The story of George Fiske should have ended there. Only it did not. Around 1915, when Ansel Adams was a boy, his Aunt Mary gave him a copy of In the Heart of the Sierras, the book illustrated with George Fiske photographs. Adams was so taken by the images, he persuaded his parents to vacation in Yosemite National Park in 1916. Adams went on to become the 20th century’s most famous landscape photographer and one of its most important environmentalists.
Ansel Adams remained a steadfast Fiske fan throughout his life. Commenting on the sawmill fire that destroyed Fiske’s remaining negatives, Adams said, “If that hadn’t happened, Fiske could have been revealed today, I firmly believe, as a top photographer, a top interpretive photographer. I really can’t get excited at Watkins and Muybridge (Eadweard Muybridge, another 19th century Yosemite photographer) – I do get excited at Fiske. I think he had the better eye.”
So remember the ones between. They almost never get the credit they deserve, but they have enhanced our lives in countless ways. They deserve our respect and our thanks.
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