Carleton Watkins Homo Faber—Man as Maker
Abel Alexander noticed the huge inconsistency between Vance's advertised specialty in portrait photography in 1847-1850, and the image he projected of himself after leaving Chile. After just a few months back in the U. S. A., Vance became known chiefly as a photographer in the out-of-doors, famous as a maker of pictures of the built environment and its landscape context in California after the Gold Rush. Alexander further observed there is no evidence that while he was in the southern hemisphere did Vance advertise or otherwise make himself known as someone practicing the arduous, risky, and unprofitable process of making outdoor views. [35]
Vance sold the Valparaiso portrait establishment in August of 1850 and soon thereafter left Chile for San Francisco [Fig. 9].[36] What became of Carleton during Vance's transition from Chile to California is a mystery to be investigated in Chapter Eight. One clue is found in the ten Latin American views that Vance carried with him to San Francisco including views made in Panama, and Mexico as well as one made in Peru and two in Chile. We are ending Chapter Seven with the natural question: How could Robert Vance have created the remarkable trove of Latin American views that are usually credited to him, when by mid-1850, while residing in the southern hemisphere, he showed no aptitude or interest in taking his cameras outside the controlled environment of his portrait studio?
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End Chapter Seven:
Homo Faber—Man as Maker