PHOTOGRAPHS
Adams, Ansel
U.S. (1902 - 1984)
Morning, Merced River Canyon, Yosemite National Park
c. 1950
Gelatin silver print
7 11/16 x 9 9/16 in. (19.5 x 24.3 cm) image and sheet size;13 1/2 x 16 5/8 in. (34.3 x 42.2 cm) mount sheet size
Monsen Study Collection of Photography, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen
FA 80.2

Celebrated landscape photographer Ansel Adams created his handsomely composed and technically flawless photographs of the American West. This image is a classic example of his precise sense of composition, lighting, and atmosphere. It presents the grace and power of nature. Morning, Merced River Canyon was created using an 8 x 10 view camera and tripod, with a Kodak Wide-Field Ektar lens. Adams recounted that he had trouble setting up the tripod in this area, as the land was rocky and unstable. The intricate detail, the shadowy contrast, and the misty blur of water in the background are a hallmark of Adams’s technique.

Ansel Adams was raised near Golden Gate on the coast of San Francisco. His greatest interests as a youth were music and photography. He first discovered photography when his father gave him a Brownie camera in 1916, the same year he discovered the beauty of the Sierra Nevada Mountains on a family camping trip. He pursued photography while working two summers in a photofinishing business. When he was eighteen he began to spend yearly summers as a Sierra Club custodian in Yosemite National Park. This began his lifelong interest in Yosemite and the management of natural resources. He published his first photographs in 1927 and in 1937 focused his work on landscape, tapping into the subject matter that would make his name synonymous with idealized nature. He also founded Group f/64 with Willard Van Dyke, an informal group of photographers dedicated to objective and realistic photography. -- Label copy for 150 Works of Art, October 1, 2005 to February 26, 2006.