Half plate outdoor daguerreotype. [Saguache County, Colorado]: Robert Shlaer, 1994. Copper/silver reverse of plate inscribed by hand: "View from Baldy Chato / La Garita Wilderness Colorado / August 30 1994 / © R Shlaer." Presented in a black oval mat within a custom black Nielsen aluminum frame.

This atmospheric landscape by pioneering modern daguerreian Robert Shlaer captures an elevated alpine vista in the Rocky Mountains, featuring an expansive foreground meadow of grasses leading toward a dense stand of subalpine fir and spruce trees, framed by rolling mountain ridges beneath dramatic sky and cloud cover.

Robert Shlaer is celebrated as a daguerreian revivalist, best known for his landmark decade-long field project recreating the lost 1853 Fifth Expedition daguerreotypes of Solomon Carvalho across the American West. This effort culminated in his definitive 2000 monograph, Sights Once Seen: Daguerreotyping Frémont’s Last Route Through the Rockies. Authentic 1990s field plates by Shlaer capturing the Rocky Mountain high country represent landmark achievements in contemporary alternative process photography.

[Contemporary Daguerreotype, Robert Shlaer, Sights Once Seen, Western Landscape, Colorado Rockies, Rocky Mountains, Solomon Carvalho, John C Fremont, 20th Century Daguerreotype, Alternative Process, Historic Photographic Process, Sixth Plate, Fine Art Photography]

Very good condition. The plate retains rich depth, crisp definition, and fine tonal gradation.