Ansel Adams

by Ansel Adams

  Cedric and his violin, hidden in the bushes, would produce the pizzicato effects with eerie timbre. How funny these plays were in situ and how dismal when given anywhere else!

  In addition to making photographs and playing the violin at the evening campfires, with his usual dichotomy of effort Cedric designed and installed the first collapsible and portable latrines for the outings. He called them his “Straddlevariouses.” Being highly inventive, he also made astonishingly solid camera and violin cases of varnished plywood with leather thongs, which would tolerate the rigors of being packed for a month on muleback.

  While on that 1932 outing, we hiked over Kaweah Gap, where I was struck by the still, icy beauty of partially frozen Precipice Lake and its background, the black base of Eagle Scout Peak. I saw several images quite clearly in my mind and made five variations. The best of the resultant photographs, Frozen Lake and Cliffs, is still very satisfying to me. It has been termed “abstract,” but I do not think any photograph can really be abstract. I prefer the term extract for I cannot change the optical realities, but only manage them in relation to themselves and the format.

  By the late 1930s, the rigorous ecological requirements dictated that large groups of two- and four-footed creatures were no longer feasible. Today the Sierra Club schedules trips all over the world as well as in the Sierra, but the groups are small and propane is now packed into the mountains for cooking. There is no longer the bountiful provision of dead wood, and campfires with their cheer and fragrance are taboo.

  In 1931, Francis Farquhar, then president of the Sierra Club, suggested that more women should be on its board of directors and promptly nominated Virginia. She was elected and served with distinction, paving the way to a less chauvinistic Sierra Club leadership. When Michael was born in 1933, Virginia decided she preferred to concentrate on home and family. The 1934 election was the beginning of my thirty-seven-year tenure as a board member, which proved to be one of the most important activities of my life. The change of stewardship was reported thus in the San Francisco Chronicle:

  SHE WON—OR MAYBE HE DID; ANYWAY, HE GOT THE JOB

  Black-bearded Ansel Adams, photographer, and his blonde wife are friendly enemies, Mrs. Adams disclosed today.

  Both are members of the Sierra Club. For two years Mrs. Adams has been a member of the board of directors. This year, both were nominated for that position.

  Ever since the nominations there have been Gaston-Alphonse scenes between them—“Now Ansel, you’ve been so active in club organization, I think you should be elected,” and, “You’ve been a director for two years, my dear, and you ought to be reelected.”

  Thus they campaigned, she for him and he for her.

  Today results of the election were made public. Mr. Adams had beaten his wife to the job—or, if you look at it the other way, Mrs. Adams had beaten her husband in campaigning.

  “I’m very glad he got it,” Mrs. Adams insisted. She was busy with their baby, Michael, she said, and hadn’t much time for directors’ meetings anyhow.

  “It’s nice, but I wish she had been re-elected,” maintained the tall, mountaineering photographer.

  Francis Farquhar, in addition to being president of the club, was editor of the Sierra Club Bulletin and was also an assistant to Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service. The National Park Act of 1916 is a strong and clear document, and Francis gave much time and energy ferociously protecting its structure and objectives.

  Francis and I appeared to be quite dissimilar. He was a proper Bostonian, a Harvard man, and a staunch Republican. However, we shared a great love for the Sierra, hiking together for many years, and we were both active at the same time in the leadership of the Sierra Club. We put up with each other’s politics: my liberal logic would contrast with his conservative one. He was a loyal member of the Bohemian Club and could never understand my refusal to join. The Bohemian Club, one of the most famous clubs in the world, began in the late 1880s as a group of artists but was taken over by their patrons and soon became the center of WASP culture. Since club membership was blatantly restricted, I persistently declined invitations of membership.

  The fact remains that many of my friends did belong to the Bohemian Club, and many artists and musicians were members because of the prestige and fellowship involved. At their two-week-long Summer Encampment, the great of the world are invited: presidents, generals, scientists, and artists. I agreed to accompany Francis once, but could only stand it for four days before I escaped. I had seen only very white skin and could not help thinking of the other great people of color I had known who would have graced this club by their presence.

  Francis was most supportive of my landscape photography. He would see a great vision in a photograph of a mountain or a pine tree but not in a close-up composition of a pinecone. To him my Pinecone and Eucalyptus Leaves represented a small fragment of nature that simply was not as important as an entire tree. I found his attitude disturbing, but in time I realized that for many viewers subject matter alone may dominate any photograph. The successful expression and transmission of creative concepts depends upon the sensitivity of the viewer. Again, quoting from my article in the 1932 Sierra Club Bulletin:

  It is a typical modern conceit to demand the maximum dimension and the maximum power in any aspect of the world—whether of men or mountains. It is better to accept the continuous beauty of the things that are, and forget comparisons of effects utterly beyond our control. An Oriental aesthete would never question the exquisite charm of those pale threads of water patterned on shining stone. The American mode of appreciation is dominantly theatrical—often oblivious of the subtle beauty in quiet, simple things. One can never assert the superiority of the vast decorations of the Sistine Chapel over some pure experience in line by Picasso, or of torrents swollen by the floods of spring against the quiescent scintillations of an autumn stream.

  These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,

  The whole referring, yet each distant and in its place.

  —from “Miracles,” by Walt Whitman

  Soon after my election the Sierra Club began the battle to establish the Kings River area as a national park. The middle and south forks of the Kings River rise in the craggy High Sierra, north of the borders of Sequoia National Park; the combined areas comprise some of the most rugged and beautiful country in America. In 1924 and 1925 I had traveled and photographed throughout the Kings River country with Professor Joseph LeConte II, his son Joe, and daughter Helen. During the 1930s, several of the Sierra Club outings were to the Kern and Kings River areas of the Sierra Nevada. My collection of good negatives from this area had become quite extensive. Francis published many of these pictures in the club bulletin, often as handsome gravure frontispieces, which enabled me to become generally known among the membership.

  An important conference was called in 1936 in Washington, D.C., to discuss the future of both our national and state parks. The Sierra Club board of directors asked me to travel to Washington and lobby for the establishment of Kings Canyon National Park. They suggested that my photographs of this region would prove to our legislators the unique beauty of the area. Using photographs as a lobbying tool had proven helpful in the past. Carleton Watkins’s photographs of Yosemite had great positive effect on the efforts that made Yosemite Valley a state park in 1864, and William Henry Jackson’s photographs of Yellowstone had been a deciding factor in the establishment of our first national park in 1872.

  With total naïveté, I ventured into the strange wilderness of our nation’s capitol with a portfolio of photographs under my arm, visiting congressmen and senators in their lairs. I boldly proclaimed the glories of the High Sierra and showed my pictures with the unabashed confidence that they would prove our contention. I was asked to address the conference and thereby became acquainted with Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. My unsophisticated presentation of photographs, coupled with appropriately righteous rhetoric, stirred considerable
attention in Congress for our cause—although I returned home with no firm commitments on behalf of Kings Canyon National Park.

  A young Sierra Club member, Peter Starr, had been killed in 1933 in a mountaineering accident in the Minaret region southeast of Yosemite. He had a passion for risky, solo wilderness climbing and the inevitable tragedy had occurred. Peter’s death was a great shock to his father, Walter Starr, a successful lumberman, supporter of conservation, and a fellow director of the Sierra Club. Walter asked me to prepare a book with my photographs of the Sierra Nevada in memory of his son, which he would finance on the condition it be a production of the highest quality with the finest reproductions possible. Accordingly, Wilder Bentley of the Archetype Press in Berkeley served as designer, typographer, and text printer, and the Lakeside Press in Chicago made the 175-line-screen letterpress engraving plates and carefully printed them. The reproductions were of extraordinary quality and were trimmed and individually glued onto the large-format pages. They have often been mistaken for original photographic prints.

  Shortly before my final deadline for The Sierra Nevada and the John Muir Trail, as the book was to be called, I joined Walter Starr and Rondal Partridge on a hike into the Minaret area, southeast of Yosemite. Ron, then my photographic assistant, was one of three sons of Imogen Cunningham and Roi Partridge, and was a fine photographer. An energetic redhead, Ron was more nutty than I and scrambled about the rocks with the abandon of a chipmunk.

  I have never approached mountains with an attitude of conquest. The experience of being on and in the rocks, the marvelous sense of substance and scale, are more exciting for me than the panorama from the highest peaks. Of course, it is fun to be on top and to identify landmarks, but I have always enjoyed the climb and the descent more than the summit pause.

  One afternoon on this particular trip a storm gathered while we were on Volcanic Ridge. Great thunderclouds enhance any landscape, and a summer storm from the crest of Half Dome or Mount Clark is unforgettable. But when the storms approach too closely I become anxious; I have seen too much lightning dance on the crags to enjoy posing as a lightning rod.

  I was photographing Iceberg Lake and the central Minarets, poised for a few moments with cable release in hand, waiting for a cloud shadow to clear the Minaret Glacier. The thunder began as I made my exposure, and I quickly gathered my things for a fast descent. Walter was extremely agile and preceded me.

  Ron said, “Give me the tripod,” which he waved over his head, yelling, “I am not afraid of lightning!” whereupon a rather strong jolt of electricity caught him with tripod high in the air, freezing his arm in a defiant position. He leaped down the jagged rocks with the tripod held on high, yelling his defiance of lightning, but was petrified when it was over. We all agreed he had had a close call and should not tempt Zeus’s aim again.

  I was finally satisfied with the images for the book and it was published. I immediately sent Stieglitz a copy and to my great delight he praised it.

  An American Place

  Dec. 21, 1938

  My Dear Adams:

  You have literally taken my breath away. The book arrived an hour ago. Such a grand surprise. O’Keeffe rushed over to see it. I had phoned her at once. Congratulations is a dumb word on an occasion like this. What perfect photography. Yours. And how perfectly preserved in the reproductions. I’m glad to have lived to see this happen. And here in America. All American. And I’m not a nationalist. I am an idolator of perfect workmanship of any kind. And this is truly perfect workmanship. I am elated. So is O’Keeffe. Many many thanks from both of us for the magnificent gift and the thought of us.

  Our deepfelt affection,

  Stieglitz

  Victory for Kings Canyon National Park, however, had still not been won. Many of the images in The Sierra Nevada and the John Muir Trail had been made in the proposed park area. I sent a copy to Secretary Ickes, who was proving himself a great friend of the environment. I received a warm letter of thanks from him in which he expressed his hope that this book would encourage others to appreciate and interpret the national parks. This pleased me very much as it confirmed my desire that the book stimulate thought and action in others.

  Ickes showed the book to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promptly commandeered it for the White House. Upon learning this, I arranged for a second copy to be sent to the secretary. President Roosevelt later joined with Ickes and pressured a stagnant Congress to pass the Kings River National Park bill in 1940.

  Even today Harold Ickes continues to be respected as the most effective secretary of the interior in our history. Feisty, outspoken, fearless, a curmudgeon dedicated to high social objectives, he understood the importance of national parks and wilderness to the world and its future. When World War II began there were strong pressures in many circles to close the national parks for the duration, with the thought that no one needs a vacation in wartime. Ickes disagreed with this, stating that in times of national stress and sorrow the people needed precisely what the national parks could offer.

  In the 1940s David Brower appeared on the Sierra Club scene. We had met during the 1930s when he was the publicity manager of Yosemite Park and Curry Company as well as an eager Sierra Clubber of boundless energy. Dave’s devotion to the Sierra and the Sierra Club and his extraordinary record of rock climbing increasingly led him into organized conservation activities. I proposed Dave to the board as a salaried assistant to the president of the Sierra Club. With some budgetary opposition he was appointed at a salary of six thousand dollars a year. He did a magnificent job and rapidly ascended the ladder of authority, becoming the Sierra Club’s first executive director in 1952. He led the club into an era of undreamed-of recognition and effectiveness.

  Unfortunately, power and success often breed ego and arrogance, and Brower assumed an imperial stance that by 1969 threatened to shatter the club’s organization and resources. The dispute arose because he continuously usurped the authority of the board of directors and proceeded unilaterally with various costly projects. It must be made clear that there was no charge whatever of dishonest use of funds. He intensely believed in what he did, but he acted with complete disregard for financial realities—the bottom line had become unimportant. Though the publishing program had begun in a profitable way with This Is the American Earth in 1960, he brought the Sierra Club to the brink of disaster by producing a series of expensive coffee-table books—books with little relevance to the board’s understanding of the American conservation movement.

  Brower also was an overzealous crusader, an approach that alienated most of the government agencies with whom the club must work. He and his young knights indulged in tactics that irritated friend and foe alike. I admired Brower, but I could not overlook the escalating dangerous aspects of his management.

  I had tried to maintain a balanced view of the important disputes that were rapidly growing in number as the Sierra Club flexed its increasing muscle. In the early 1960s, Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced the development of a nuclear power plant on the Nipomo Dunes, south of Pismo Beach, California. This was an exceptionally beautiful area and had been designated a future state park. The board of the Sierra Club felt that another site in the general area must be substituted, and we waged a battle royal on behalf of the dunes. We were relieved when PG&E gave up their claim and chose an alternative site to the north, Diablo Canyon. As are most areas of the California Coast, Diablo Canyon is an attractive place, but not unique. Fellow Sierra Club board member William Siri and I described our position in a 1967 Sierra Club Bulletin.

  Four mile long Diablo Canyon has many beautiful natural features including a grove of large, old oaks. Part of the grove would be sacrificed for power distribution equipment on fill in the lower end of the canyon. Much of the canyon will be left undisturbed. The impairment of the canyon, we believe, must be balanced against the greater values in the Nipomo Dunes.

  Diablo Canyon made better sense as an alternate coastal power plant site with t
he attendant need for a constant source of cooling water. The club publicly expressed appreciation to PG&E for its willingness to change locations, though Brower and a minority of directors disagreed.

  All hell broke loose. The next Sierra Club board elections resulted in a change in the balance of power, and the new majority, led by Brower, demanded another vote. Now the majority declared Diablo Canyon to be a prime scenic treasure that must not be violated by any development. I thought the protest was unreasonable. I believed that if we strongly opposed a project we should make an effort to propose an alternative. We had made the decision and we should abide by it. I am certainly biased to the natural scene, but I also recognized the need for electrical power. The problem as I saw it was to maintain a balance of use, thereby assuring that the truly important areas would stand a better chance of protection. I became, in the minds of some, a reactionary, an Uncle Tom.

  Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant was built, but with continuing opposition to this day. And tragically, questions concerning the plant seem to mount with time, not about the location being a prime scenic area, but about the plant’s position on a previously unknown earthquake faultline and charges of inferior construction.

  The vehemence, anger, and accusations on both sides of the argument were beyond anything I had previously experienced. This fight did immense harm to the credibility of the Sierra Club and tore the leadership apart. I came to realize that the collective intelligence of boards and committees can be much less than that of the individuals composing them.

  The elections of 1969 loudly expressed support for me and the minority position, and we again became the majority. Brower resigned immediately to form what he felt would be a more activist group, Friends of the Earth. But I was left depressed and without enthusiasm for this cause that had absorbed so much of my energies. I felt too many in the club had grown unreasonable. My concern grew and finally prompted me to resign as a director in 1971 at the age of sixty-nine. I firmly believed that new blood would be of greater benefit to the cause.