I.W. Taber

Who was I.W. Taber?

Isaiah West Taber was an American daguerreotypist, ambrotypist, and photographer who took many pictures of noted Californians, which he donated to the California State Library "that the state may preserve the names and faces, and keep alive the memory of those who made it what it is." He was also a sketch artist and dentist.

Taber was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts and between 1845 and 1849 he worked at sea on a whaler. He first moved to California in 1850. He returned East in 1854 and opened up his first photography studio in Syracuse, New York. In 1864, he returned to California, where he worked in the studio of Bradley and Rulofson until 1873.

In 1871, Taber opened his own studio, where he gained fame for reproducing the photos of Carleton Watkins after Watkins went bankrupt, although the reproductions were published without credit to Watkins.

In 1880, Taber made a six-week photographic trip to the Hawaiian Islands where, among other subjects, he photographed the Hawaiian King Kalākaua, completing a commission for three full-length portraits. The following year Kalākaua visited Taber's studio in San Francisco. At this time the Japanese photographer Suzuki Shin'ichi was studying photographic techniques with Taber; Suzuki also photographed King Kalākaua and may have been the source of some views of Japan included in Taber's stock.