Charles Leander Weed

b. 1824 — d. 1903

Charles Leander Weed American, 1824-1903 Born in New York state, Charles Leander Weed moved to Sacramento, where he became a camera operator in the daguerreotype portrait studio of George J. Watson in 1854. Four years later he was named the junior partner of Robert Vance, the leading daguerreotypist in California during the 1850s. Weed is recognized for his early views of Yosemite. In June 1859 he was the first known photographer to venture into the valley, taken there by the publisher, developer, and entrepreneur James Hutchings, who printed woodcuts after Weed's wet plate photographs later that year in his Hutchings' California Magazine. Like other photographers, Weed switched from daguerreotypes to the wet collodion technique soon after its local introduction at the 1855 California State Fair. His views of early mining and settlement in California have been much admired. In 1860 Weed left his partnership to make the first of several visits to Asia, briefly establishing a studio in Hong Kong before returning to California the following year. He photographed Yosemite in 1864, then traveled to produce views of Hawaii in 1865 and of the Far East in 1867. That same year he showed his photographs at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, winning an international award for landscape photography. Weed made another trip to Yosemite in 1872, probably with Eadweard Muybridge, and later worked as a photoengraver. T.W.F.