Multnomah Falls, Columbia River, Oregon, 2500 feet.

Multnomah Falls, Columbia River, Oregon, 2500 feet.

Carleton Watkins, 1867

Download2938 × 4000 px View on a wall Edit

Artist: Carleton Watkins (American, 1829–1916)
Medium: Albumen silver print
Size: Image: 52.2 × 40 cm (20 9/16 × 15 3/4 in.)
Culture: American
Museum: J. Paul Getty Museum
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

In Carleton Watkins's expansive vertical photograph, the Multnomah falls enter the frame at the top of the image as though falling from the heavens. The falls boldly bisect the land, dividing the image into a frosty, wintry left half and a lush, spring-like right. The froth eventually plunges into murky, darkened depths. The Multnomah waterfalls are located on a short tributary of the Columbia River that rises in the Larch Mountains of northwestern Oregon. As seen here, the upper and lower Multnomahs fall into the Columbia River Gorge with a combined height of 850 feet and a single drop of 620 feet, one of the longest in the United States.

Text: J. Paul Getty Trust, CC BY 4.0.

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