A single album leaf from a Taber of San Francisco photographic series presents two albumen prints, one on each side of the heavyweight mount. The recto carries catalog number B 3019 and depicts a steam ferryboat entering the Oakland Slip, California, captured head-on as the vessel pushes a churning wake between two concrete pier walls. The verso bears number B 1062 and records what the printed caption calls an "instantaneous surf effect at Fort Point, Golden Gate," a dynamic composition showing a wave exploding against a stone seawall with the rocky headland and low fort buildings visible in the middle distance.

On the ferry view, a dense column of black smoke billows from the single stack, a sailboat and a low hill appear on the horizon beyond the slip entrance, and figures are faintly visible on the upper deck. The Fort Point image shows bollards along the foreground promenade, a lone rock rising from the churning bay, and spray dispersing against a pale sky above the dark cliffside.

Taber, operating from San Francisco, was one of California's most prominent commercial photographers of the late nineteenth century, and this numbered series was widely distributed as souvenir and documentary views of Bay Area landmarks. The two subjects together represent both the working maritime commerce of the bay and the dramatic natural forces at its entrance.

The caption border on each print reads "Taber Photo., San Francisco," with catalog numbers B 3019 and B 1062 printed at lower left of their respective images. The album page measures 8 1/2 by 12 1/4 inches, with each image approximately 4 3/4 by 7 1/4 inches.

From the collection of James Lee Soffer