Charles Leander Weed was an American photographer, who was born in New York state on July 17, 1824, and died in Oakland, California on August 31, 1903.
In 1855, Weed adopted the wet collodion technique, and his photographs of Gold Rush miners and settlement were much admired.
[1] Weed took the first known photographs of the Valley's features, and a September exhibition in San Francisco presented them to the public.
Hutchings published four installments of "The Great Yo-semite Valley" from October 1859[5] to March 1860 in his magazine; these articles contained woodcuts based on Weed's photographs.
[6] Beginning in 1860, Weed started extensive traveling, including trips to Hong Kong (where he briefly established a studio) and Hawaii.