H4631.205

Small photo, of costume and early photo interest. from Geo. H. Johnson, San Francisco. (On back of photo) "He sends it with his kind reagards, Sarah," From the History Information Station: Photography first reached California in the form of the daguerreotype, a process which produced positive images on reflective sheets of silver-plated copper. New York daguerreotypist George H. Johnson arrived in Sacramento in l849, opening what may have been the first permanent photographic studio in California. He did a steady business among the forty-niners, taking portraits and occasionally trundling his bulky equipment into the foothills to document the hordes of newcomers practicing placer mining. In l852, fire consumed his gallery along with most of the city, and Johnson relocated to San Francisco, scene of intense competition among photographers. His "Pacific Pioneer Daguerrean Gallery" on Montgomery Street operated until the mid l860's, when he invested in mining stocks and retired. By this time photographs on paper had replaced the daguerreotype, opening a new era in California photography, dominated by great landscape artists such as Eadward Muybridge and Carleton E. Watkins.

Used: California

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