Ansel Adams' Words About Photography

I also saw the Ansel Adams at the Corcoran, which closes January 27th. Not as moving as Leibovitz, but perhaps I was just drained.

On the wall, outside the exhibit is this statement from Adams: “No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain can not be denied. It speaks in silence to the very core of your being.”

I learned that Adams began his photography when he was a teenager working in Yosemite park.

Adams on his photos – they are not “abstracts but extracts.”

Adams on Half Dome: “As soon as I saw the moon coming up by the Half Dome I had visualized the image…I have photographed Half Dome innumerable times, but it is never the same Half Dome, never the same light or the same mood.” 1960 To see or buy the image, click here. Do a search at the web site for Half Dome and see some of the many images of Half Dome Adams took.

“Famed curator John Sarkowski wrote that Adams undertook his photography as a form of private worship: ‘his great work was done under the stimulus of a profound and mystical experience of the natural world.’”

The exhibit concluded with this quote from Adams: “Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and the wonder surrounding him.”

Check out the official Ansel Adams website. Here was another favorite image, because it wasn't a landscape.