Ansel Adams In The National Parks
Long after his death we continue to celebrate the brilliance of Ansel Adams, who arguably defined landscape photography, often while working in national parks to capture the magnificence of nature.
Even today, more than a quarter-century after his death, there's a steady clamor for the photographer's images. When word broke earlier this year that an overlooked cache of his negatives had been found at a garage sale, it became national news...and sparked more than a little controversy over the authenticity of those glass slides.
Why are Mr. Adams' images so enduring? Is it because of their composition, or because of the time capsules they represent? Is it both?
No doubt much of the allure for an Adams print can be explained by citing the photographer's own words, those he wrote in 1950 in an introduction to his book, My Camera in the National Parks:
The dawn wind in the High Sierra is not just a passage of cool air through forest conifers, but within the labyrinth of human consciousness becomes a stirring of some world-magic of most delicate persuasion. The grand lift of the Tetons is more than a mechanistic fold and faulting of the earth's crust; it becomes a primal gesture of the earth beneath a greater sky. And on the ancient Acadian coast an even more ancient Atlantic surge disputes the granite headlands with more than the slow, crumbling erosion of the seas. Here are forces familiar with the aeons of creation, and with the aeons of the ending of the world.
While there are numerous books, posters, and postcards where you can see how Mr. Adams transformed those words into images, there's a new one coming out in time for your holiday wish list that contains more than 200 of his images -- 50 of which previously were unpublished....
Read entire article at National Parks Traveler
Even today, more than a quarter-century after his death, there's a steady clamor for the photographer's images. When word broke earlier this year that an overlooked cache of his negatives had been found at a garage sale, it became national news...and sparked more than a little controversy over the authenticity of those glass slides.
Why are Mr. Adams' images so enduring? Is it because of their composition, or because of the time capsules they represent? Is it both?
No doubt much of the allure for an Adams print can be explained by citing the photographer's own words, those he wrote in 1950 in an introduction to his book, My Camera in the National Parks:
The dawn wind in the High Sierra is not just a passage of cool air through forest conifers, but within the labyrinth of human consciousness becomes a stirring of some world-magic of most delicate persuasion. The grand lift of the Tetons is more than a mechanistic fold and faulting of the earth's crust; it becomes a primal gesture of the earth beneath a greater sky. And on the ancient Acadian coast an even more ancient Atlantic surge disputes the granite headlands with more than the slow, crumbling erosion of the seas. Here are forces familiar with the aeons of creation, and with the aeons of the ending of the world.
While there are numerous books, posters, and postcards where you can see how Mr. Adams transformed those words into images, there's a new one coming out in time for your holiday wish list that contains more than 200 of his images -- 50 of which previously were unpublished....