Inspiration Point is one of the most visited, thoroughly-photographed vistas in the world; 150 years before social media would consume the National Parks, Watkins would make a series of indelible images that remain some of the greatest images of this iconic point, despite being among the first few ever made. The historian Tyler Green notes that “Watkins would make pictures from Inspiration Point eight times in the ensuing years, but in 1861 either he passed or the glass plate(s) broke before he returned to San Francisco” (87). Thus, in 1865 Watkins made some of the first photographs from the Inspiration Point vicinity, preceded only by Charles L. Weed’s photos made the year prior. This is one of the first photographs of Yosemite from around Inspiration Point, and one of a few surviving prints in such stellar condition.