El Capitan crujido

It’s deep summer, which means that we’re suggesting you might want to go see a photographic exhibition at, yes, the Crocker Art Museum. The subject is the Yosemite Valley, and the time period covered begins during the Civil War and ends two decades later near the advent of the Golden Dawn—which means there’ll be no shots of cranky shoppers or Henry-style campers bitching about bad TV reception and how the aromas of their weenies a-roasting are attracting a sloth of bad-news bears. And the photographer was Carleton Watkins, who had to shlep his equipment in by mule, this being an era when the cameras and other apparatus needed to take photographs could not be stashed neatly in a day-pack. He took some breathtaking pictures, too. The Crocker, at 216 O St., is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; it stays open on Thursday until 9 p.m., $3-$4-$6; call 264-5423 for information. The Majestic Lens: Carleton Watkins’s Yosemite runs through September 8.