Carleton Watkins Valparaíso, 1849
resolving-power of the lens employed that the hands on the clock and time of day can be discerned under magnification.
The plate now in Toronto shows the time of day as 3:05 p.m. [Fig. 11A] and the Getty Museum plate shows the time as 3:35 p.m. [Fig. 11B], thus establishing an elapsed time of thirty minutes between one exposure and the other.[25] Assuming there is no lost third plate, when the time required to set up the camera, to compose the image, andto sensitize and develop the plates are added, the time required to create the daguerreotypes is calculated to be more than one hour. This time does not include travel time to the site or time to prospect for the best viewpoint.
Positioned on the bluff behind the clock tower is the grand residence of the American Consul, William G. Moorhead [Fig. 3]. We know the location of the American Consulate from a traveller’s description: "It is on the extreme edge of a plateau jutting out from the [Cerro de l a Concepcion] and looks down upon the town over a precipice three hundred feet high," recalled one visitor.[26] Could the choice of a viewpoint that includes the American Consulate be a clue to the photographer’s origins?
The pair of daguerreotypes look superficially like documentary bird’s-eye views. However, there are deeper content elements. In composing the pictures with the clock tower to the right of center, time passing becomes an element of the content. In addition to movement of the hands of the clock we also see how boats floating in the harbor had shifted their positions in the time between the two exposures. Time and motion contribute to the content of these pictures and anticipate the destiny of photography as the only way time could be stopped.
The survival of a pair of daguerreotypes made from nearly the same viewpoint showing two points in time on the same clock, is exceptional in the early history of photography. What a pity that the maker did not sign his name to either of these remarkable daguerreotypes that in many ways anticipate the future course of photography.
Valparaíso was the subject of yet another set of daguerreian views, but the daguerreotypes are now lost. The only evidence for the existence of the lost daguerreotypes is a large lithograph [Fig. 12] for which the daguerreotypes were the visual source. The lithograph was probably the work of more than a single artist. Typically, one artist drew the buildings and landscape to which another artist added the figures. The view is faithful to the place, a fact established by comparing what is shown in the pair of