A Sunday morning meditation… “Trees, Slide Lake, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming,” c. 1965. Photograph by Ansel Adams. © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.

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3天前

“No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied – it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.” — A.A. ‘Cathedral Peak and Lake, Yosemite National Park, California,’ 1938. Photograph by Ansel Adams.

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16

4天前

“The appreciation of the natural scene should not be limited only to the grandeurs; the intimate details and qualities of our immediate environment can be revealed and appreciated. To protect these qualities will require a new planning approach of the highest order of sensitivity and effectiveness. We are prone to think of natural beauty—parks, reserves, ‘dedicated areas,’ etc.—in terms of locations on maps, restricted by borders and boundaries and viewed ‘vertically.’ This pseudo-aerial view can be misleading; our vision is usually projected horizontally and the vistas of the world are as important as the actual contact with rock and soil and growing things. Hence, the prospects, the glades, the lines of the hills, and the vast expanses of shore and ocean, these too must be preserved.... “We must take ALL resources under consideration; all resources, because they relate fatefully to our life on earth, reflect certain grandeurs, and deserve not only our attention, but our reverence.” “Aspens, Northern New Mexico,” 1958. Photograph by Ansel Adams. ©️The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

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9天前

“Let us never forget that the National Park Service is based upon a legislative act and is not securely incorporated in the Constitution of the United States. Hence, it is vulnerable to erosion and destruction by legislative action. Such action may be sudden and catastrophic, as in the event of some national emergency, or it might appear as a slow but tragic attrition induced by overpopulation, economic pressures and public apathy. Obviously, eternal vigilance must therefore be the essential attitude of all our people.” — A.A.⁠ ⁠ #anseladams #protectourparks

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10天前

“The average man is plagued with bewilderment over the productions of contemporary artists. Neither can he understand the artist himself… Recently a congressman has publicly linked contemporary art with Communism. The stately bluster of congressional authority carries a lot of weight with a lot of people. There is no doubt that his pronouncements served to strengthen the already sour opinions of vast numbers of people whose tolerance may be dangerously approaching the breaking point… It is not good for our civilization that such attacks do not draw forth vigorous protest from large numbers of our people. We have all seen art and intellect ridiculed in comic strips, popular fiction and on the movie screen. The advisors F.D.R. gathered around him —usually men of rare mental and imaginative gifts—were caricatured as “longhairs,” nit-wits, and often as *reds*. Such monstrosities of taste and distortions of fact are accepted by a large docile public as gospel truth. But this docility is an illusion; in the face of a great crisis it may turn suddenly into a great consuming flame, searing the spiritual well-springs of our society... The arts, literature, science—the great triumvirate of human progress—are literally on the block, so to speak. Merely castigating the stupid opposition does more harm than good, as it creates more stubborn opposition and determinations to destroy. The artist and the creative intellectual MUST examine himself and his relation to society as a whole, and by positive assertions and example give the people at large a more satisfactory understanding of the importance of art and the creative spirit.” —A.A. 🇺🇸 “Mount Williamson, Sierra Nevada, from Manazanar, California,” 1944. Photograph by Ansel Adams.

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12天前

“We must keep our cool and our dignity and fight like hell!” —A.A. Letter for the ‘Opinion’ Page of the San Jose Mercury News (subsequently reproduced in Knight Ridder Newspapers nationwide). Published April 28, 1981.

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14天前

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” — A.A. Road and Fog, Del Monte Forest, Pebble Beach, California, 1964. Photograph by Ansel Adams.

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15天前

“Ansel’s portrait of O’Keeffe and Cox was made at the rim of Canyon de Chelly. ‘I was walking around with my Zeiss Contax,’ he wrote, ‘and I observed O’Keeffe and Orville Cox in breezy conversation standing on a rock slope above me. They were engaged in a bit of banter. The moment was now . . . .’ “In the spring of 1935, Dr. Carl Bauer, the U.S. representative of Carl Zeiss, had presented Ansel with his first 35mm camera, a Zeiss Contax. Filled with enthusiasm for ‘the miraculous instrument’ and excited by the photographic possibilities of the small format, he spent the following summer in the Sierra in what he described as an ‘orgy’ photographing ‘everything from clouds to water-bubbles, people, mules, rocks, and flowers.’ When Ansel showed the 35mm camera to Stieglitz even he was seduced: ‘If I had a camera like that I would close this place up and be out on the streets of the city!’ “That winter Camera Craft magazine published Ansel’s article on 35mm photography with the title ‘My First Ten Weeks with a Contax.’ He wrote, ‘The camera is for life and for people, the swift and intense moments of existence . . . ,’ and his light-hearted photograph of O’Keeffe proves the point. He continued: ‘In general I favor a tripod-mounted view camera for static subjects that invite contemplation.’ ‘This was one special moment requiring the spontaneous capability of my 35mm camera, not the cumbersome and time-consuming setting up of my view camera.’ ‘My main aesthetic objective has been to find the ‘rightness’ of subject in relation to the apparatus; not to imitate the production of larger cameras, but to speak in the specific language of the medium employed, or, rather, in a particular dialect of the language of photography.’” Excerpt from ‘Looking at Ansel Adams’ by Andrea Gray Stillman, published by @littlebrown . 📷1: 35mm proof sheet of images Ansel made at Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona, in 1937. 📷2: “Georgia O’Keeffe and Orville Cox, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona,” 1937. Photograph by Ansel Adams. Collection Cantor Arts Center, The Capital Group Foundation Photography Collection at Stanford University. @cantorarts

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16天前

“With all art expression, when something is seen, it is a vivid experience—sudden, compelling, and inevitable. The visualization is complete—the seemingly instant review of all the mental and imaginative resources called forth by some miracle of the mind-computer that we do not comprehend. For me this resource...is perhaps a summation of total experience and instinct. Nothing modifies or replaces it.” — A.A.⁠ 📷: Frozen Lake and Cliffs, Kaweah Gap, Sierra Nevada, California, 1932. Photograph by Ansel Adams.

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17天前