Ansel Adams

by Ansel Adams

  John achieved a brilliant visual statement by his placement and proximity of the prints. The opening section of the exhibition was entirely of photographs made over many years of Yosemite Valley taken from one viewpoint. The series of five photographs that I call Surf Sequence was hung in almost a diamond shape of frames so that the viewer could wander through the sequence in any order. In a few instances he hung two prints of the same image made years apart, side by side, to show my changing interpretations of the same negatives. John also searched far and wide to find vintage images—those prints made close in time to the negative. It was wonderful for me to revisit prints I had made up to five decades earlier.

  The MOMA opening coincided with the publication of my book Yosemite and the Range of Light. I traveled to New York and, though just seven months had passed since my open heart surgery, thoroughly enjoyed all the hoopla, including a cover story in the September 3 issue of Time authored by the respected art critic Robert Hughes. One special evening was a dinner in my honor at the “21” Club hosted by Arthur Thornhill. Among the guests were my old friends Sally and Dave McAlpin and Beaumont Newhall: a nostalgic event for all.

  Yosemite and the Range of Light has proved to be a phenomenon. I would estimate that before its publication I had sold a total of one million copies of my books. This single title has sold over a hundred thousand copies in hardback and another hundred thousand in a soft-cover edition. I am most definitely delighted with its popularity.

  In 1980 I was warmed by the establishment of The Ansel Adams Conservation Award, the highest honor The Wilderness Society confers. Bill Turnage read the citation that named me the first awardee,

  “Ansel Adams—for your deep devotion to preserving America’s wild lands and to caring that future generations know a part of the world as it has been.…”

  These words were especially moving to me. It is certainly good to hear such while one is still in this sphere.

  Without my awareness, I became famous. I am enveloped in a shroud of notoriety, embalmed with praise and wondering if I shall rise again. Here I am with numerous honorary degrees, awards, and medals, the center of disputes and reputedly the fountain of all photographic knowledge (which I certainly am not). Relatively few really know me, but millions know the folk hero they think is me. I have apparently touched many people through my work, and this gives me great satisfaction.

  The billions of people who have preceded me were conscious entities; the lion, the man, and the mouse, little difference among them in the ancient procession of life on earth. I believe that the individual is but a cell in the larger body of the species; as the cerebral concentrations become more complex, the illusion of individuality develops. Superior minds and spirits emerge, yet who can deny that countless others of equal stature might have been revealed had circumstances favored them or their destinies? The miracle of the accident may exceed that of the reality.

  I will always embrace a credo of excellence in craft and vision; both are difficult to maintain. I have not intentionally warped my work into the patterns and patter of the times. My vision established its own groove, as I know I have been derivative of myself for fifty years. If I felt a compelling urge to change directions of vision and feeling, I would do so.

  My years in Carmel have developed a fine rhythm. I awaken by seven and sit down to a healthy breakfast prepared by Virginia, of oatmeal with bran, toast and jam, juice, and decaffeinated coffee. While eating, I make my way through two papers: the Monterey Herald and the San Francisco Chronicle. I used to turn directly to “Doonesbury,” the most significant cartoon in my memory: a form of philosophic social commentary that was far more than funny. I especially appreciated the environmental satires and the keen sense of human values Garry Trudeau expresses through such characters as Duke, B.J., and Zonker. Next, I jump over to Herb Caen’s column and then have a quick look at the news. On Sundays, our fine friends Linda and Arno Hanel spoil us by dropping off hot croissants and the New York Times. It is soon back downstairs to enjoy a hot, pounding shower, get dressed, and then to work.

  At the present time, I am working with my photographic assistant Chris Rainier, proofing for the first time all of my forty thousand negatives made over nearly seven decades. Chris’s own photographs are quite beautiful. It is invigorating for me to be with a young person of such quality while he is maturing and acquiring craft and experience.

  On occasion new reproduction prints still must be made, since most of my previous prints for this purpose have been dry-mounted on boards. My latest publishing projects have used the laser-scanner, and its circular drum requires unmounted prints—often made specifically for each project. If this is the case, Chris will pull the negative from the vault and set up the necessary chemistry. I don my Washington Post apron and disappear into the darkroom, reappearing to check the tonal quality of the first proofs, often by drying portions of the photograph in my microwave oven! It can take an hour or several days until I have achieved a print with which I am satisfied.

  At eleven A.M. precisely, my stomach unfailingly says, “Feed me!” Though perpetually on a diet, I sneak into the kitchen for a bowl of maple syrup beans or a few cookies and milk. Then it is back to the darkroom to be summoned for my real lunch at twelve-thirty. We are blessed with two fine chefs who cover lunch and dinner seven days a week: Fumiye Kodani has been conjuring kitchen magic for us for nearly fifteen years, and Bruce Witham, a young Culinary Arts Institute graduate, provides supreme fare in the new California mode. I insist that the entire staff eat lunch with Virginia and me as often as possible. It is companionable and relaxing to have that short social period in the middle of our working day and, of course, we spend most of lunch talking business.

  Phyllis Donohue, one of the finest persons I have known, has served as my master print spotter and has cheerfully tackled many other tasks. For over a decade, Phyllis has been important to the production of my books and portfolios. Rod Dresser has been a tremendous recent addition to the staff. Besides backing Chris up in the darkroom, he is fluent in computerese and is in the process of cataloging all of those proofs that Chris and I are making. In the future I shall be able to summon up a negative, proof, or reproduction print in the flash of a microchip. Since one of my failings is worrying unnecessarily about financial realities, the calm presence of Judy Siria, our bookkeeper par excellence, is always welcome.

  After lunch comes the second-best part of the day: mail! I subscribe to a goodly number of journals and magazines, and after every letter has been perused, I retire to my bed for a brief time of reading the new publications as well as from a ready stack of books. After an hour, I give Mary a call on the intercom and she comes down to take my pulse and blood pressure and to do a quick check on other necessary functions—lungs and circulation. She then unmercifully drums me out of the house on an enforced walk.

  When Mary began working for me in 1979, the first task I gave her was to make me start writing this autobiography. I simply could not get going. We began by taking long walks, Mary with tape recorder in hand, questioning me about everyone from Charles Adams to William Zorach. She encouraged the purchase of an IBM Display-writer, and I entered the computer age and actually began writing this book. Most afternoons I now spend writing into the machine, then Mary edits my text the next morning. As I sit down in front of my computer, I often find 3x5 cards written out by Mary, taped to the screen in front of my eyes: “AA, You need to write about Diego Rivera” or “AA, Here is what you’ve written about Imogen Cunningham—what about the story you told me yesterday about her?” and her ubiquitous, “Walk for Health!”

  After a couple of hours on the computer, I move to writing letters in response to a telephone call for help telling me that there is some emergency in the environmental scene and I must immediately write to Congressmen X, Y, and Z. To be effective, such letters must be composed with great care and this takes time and mental energy. But I am depended upon to write such letters and there goes an hour of intensive effo
rt. I know it is a great cause, but it can also be quicksand to my time.

  My staff has instructions to allow few phone calls to interrupt me as I write. There are only a handful of people I will let break my concentration. My old friends are sympathetic to this and gladly call again at a later time. One person I never put off is my attorney David Vena. Dave is the rare and happy combination of brilliant, hard-driving lawyer coupled with a rare sensitivity and commitment to the creative arts. His charming wife, Carol Vena-Mondt, has established herself as a painter of great promise, working in mixed media. They make a dynamic duo!

  At four P.M. I often greet an interviewer or TV crew and sit in the living room, answering questions for an hour or so. At five o’clock Virginia sets out a bar, and several of the staff, visiting photographers, and friends sit down and join us in a drink. Cocktails at the Adamses’ is a long-established tradition. I am partial to a very dry martini, lemon peel marinated in vermouth, over the rocks, and diluted with a lot of water so that I can enjoy more than one. Sunset is best when there is no trace of fog and everyone gathers in hope of witnessing the emeraldlike green flash as the sun is greeted by the Pacific. To all those nonbelievers in the existence of the green flash, Webster’s properly defines it as “The momentary green appearance of the uppermost part of the sun’s disk, due to atmospheric refraction, as it sinks below, or rises above, the horizon.”

  I prefer a simple and light supper: soup and crackers, then an early bedtime. I have always been an insomniac and leave a light on all night, moving in and out of sleep while reading and listening to the radio.

  I continue to photograph, though not with the daily energy of decades past. In recent years Jim Alinder has been my companion during these sojourns. We have walked the forests of Pebble Beach, climbed the rocks of Point Lobos, inspected the great lasers of Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, scoured the old artillery emplacements in the Marin hills, searched the back roads and farms of San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Monterey counties, and are always captivated by the splendor of Yosemite Valley.

  In our most recent trip to Yosemite, Chris Rainier joined us to be sure my film, filters, and lenses were always at hand. Since Jim and I were both using our Hasselblads, we could exchange equipment. He visualized an abstract waterfall detail necessitating the use of my long telephoto and I saw a tree detail that required the close-up capability of his new macro lens. We had a couple of beautiful days, tiring in their intensity, yet the thrill of making a new image was still with me. We ended the last day by photographing each other and then returned to enjoy the company of family and friends over cocktails at Michael and Jeanne’s comfortable Yosemite West house.

  The Hasselblad has been my camera of choice for the past twenty years. I thoroughly enjoy its superlative optical and mechanical precision. I met Dr. Victor Hasselblad in New York in 1950. On my return to San Francisco, I found one of his first cameras awaiting me: the 1600F model, with the request to try it out and send my comments to him in Sweden. I was to keep the camera with his compliments. As with any pilot model there were many things to write about, but the basic concept of the camera was magnificent. The maximum 1/1600 second shutter speed was, of course, realized more on the design board than in actuality. It tested out at about half that, but the slower speeds were quite accurate.

  The next model, the Hasselblad 1000F, was much more satisfactory in all respects; the shutter speeds were more accurate throughout the range. However, the mechanical focal-plane shutter was a serious design problem and was abandoned for the 500C model, signifying a between-the-lens shutter of 1/500 second maximum speed. This camera appeared with a magnificent series of Zeiss lenses and numerous accessories and became tremendously successful. Then the 2000FC model appeared, with an electronically controlled focal-plane shutter of great accuracy at all speeds. With high ethical intention, this camera was designed to use both the old 500C lenses and the new lenses made especially for focal-plane shutter use. Because these superior lenses have become extremely costly, this feature was greatly appreciated.

  I shall never forget the instructions I received from Victor himself, which accompanied that first camera. “When lens attached hold firmly, input lens on camera, press to side, stop turning at sound of click and camera is ready to take.” His English improved over the years. A devoted amateur photographer specializing in birds, he warmly encouraged young photographers and sponsored excellence in many fields. When an astronaut apologized to him for losing a Hasselblad camera during an early space walk, Victor replied, “Think nothing of it. What other camera manufacturer has a little planet in space?”

  I have made many of my well-known photographs with the Hasselblad, but to single one out, a favorite is Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, 1960. I was driving a bit aimlessly around the valley one winter afternoon, when I clearly saw an image in my mind’s eye of Half Dome as the moon rose over its right shoulder. I parked my car and with my Hasselblad and tripod firmly positioned across my shoulder, I strode over the snowy field in front of the Ahwahnee until I found the place that best revealed the scene. The photograph shows Half Dome, surely the most distinctively shaped mountain in the world, partially darkened by late afternoon shadows with its seemingly smaller companion, the near-full moon. I used my 250mm telephoto to compress the space relationship, making the moon appear somewhat larger in relation to Half Dome than it was in reality.

  After Victor’s death, the Hasselblad Foundation established a gold medal award. In 1981, I was notified that King Carl xvi Gustaf of Sweden would present me with the second Hasselblad Medal. The first had been awarded to the great Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson. The Hasselblad Gold Medal was a very special honor for me because of my deep respect for Victor and what he had accomplished. The ceremony took place at MOMA. It was quite an affair: the King and Queen, Blanchette Rockefeller, the superb director of MOMA Richard Oldenberg, and about four hundred guests and one hundred paparazzi. It has been, thankfully, my only experience with this form of the European press. All one hundred electronic flashes were fired simultaneously as King Gustaf presented me with the medal. The incredible light prepared one for the apocalypse. Throughout, I was impressed with the simplicity and graciousness of the Swedish royal couple.

  Though I love a good party, I have never been much of a holiday person. Virginia’s birthday has come and gone, forgotten by me, too many times. I cannot wait for the day after Christmas, when my staff returns to work. I personally do not recognize a day off—work is my greatest enjoyment. However, during the past half-dozen years, Virginia and I have spent many birthdays, Christmases, Easters, Fourths of Julys, and Pig Valve (Valentine’s) Days, gathered about the Alinder table with our extended Carmel family including their children, lovely Jasmine, handsome Jesse, and gregarious Zachary.

  Jim and Mary asked if The Friends could give my eightieth birthday celebration in 1982. It was two nights I shall always remember. February 19, three exhibitions of my photographs opened simultaneously on the Monterey Peninsula: a large retrospective curated by Mary at the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, a show of unknown work curated by Jim at The Friends gallery, and an exhibit at the Weston Gallery. I made my way from opening to opening, driving up in my 1977 white Cadillac, license plate “Zone V,” my arrival announced by the playing of the computer horn my staff presented me as a birthday gift. It plays seventy-two different tunes but I am partial to the “Marseillaise” and “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.” There were hundreds of people at each opening, spilling out into the streets, and I was greeted at each stop with cheering choruses of “Happy Birthday.”

  The following evening was a black-tie dinner for two hundred thirty-four people. Many of my oldest and dearest friends flew from all over the world to be with us. Mary directed the event with aplomb, and Jim was a dapper master of ceremonies. The food was superb, prepared by the incomparable Michael Jones and Valentine Fine of A Moveable Feast, including my favorite, “Ansel’s Sorrel Soup.” Incredibly, the birthday cake, s
haped like Half Dome, was escorted in by an eighty-piece marching band.

  Then the toasts began and I was surprised, delighted, and greatly honored to be presented with the Legion of Merit by the French cultural attaché and Lucien Clergue; it is the highest award that the French government can bestow on a non-French artist.

  But I had yet to receive my gift from Virginia and Mary—a gift of music. Over the years my interest in music has continued, though not at the serious level of my youth. In earlier days I attended every concert that came to town. Later, I was much more selective and concentrated on piano and orchestral presentations. I have always found that string quartet concerts were the most difficult to sit through; the first half was usually wonderful, but the second section—no matter what the music—exhausted me. I assume that, not being a string man, I was wearied by the effort to hear and understand the music. I finally arrived at the point where I could not sit through a concert without worrying about my photographic problems. I reasoned, “Why should I be occupying a seat in a crowded hall, suffering with my divided attention, while denying serious music lovers a chance to benefit?” I enjoy my hi-fi when I want to listen. I cannot have music playing while I am working in the darkroom or while writing; I cannot help listening to the music and my mind wanders. It is a distraction of one form of art enveloping another.

  The apex of my musical experience was the eightieth birthday concert in our home arranged by Virginia and Mary. I had given them instructions that when I die I do not want a funeral, but rather a small concert to be arranged for our friends. They decided to give me the concert while I was still alive. They chose my favorite, the sublime pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, one of the greats of our time. Such an artist, when heard in a concert hall, is one thing; but when heard in the intimate surrounds of the home, it becomes a completely unforgettable experience. His interpretations of Chopin, Beethoven, and Ravel were colossal.