Books like Ansel Adams: Classic Image Essays

As with other Adams’ photo collections, a few leap out. Many do not. Overall, the photos are simple, clean, void of noise. I like the pure natural scenes, without people, and the way he captured, for example, the aspens (plate # 63) and the lone animal in the distant light (# 78). The winnowing woman at the Taos Pueblo (#4) is more nature than person. In the picture of the “Spanish American Woman” (# 17), the face is striking, as is the photo title; the composition is perfectly balanced, even with the photo’s minimalist context. In the O’Keefe and Orville Cox (head wrangler at Ghost Ranch) photo (#14), the two of them parallel each other perfectly, like a river and its bank. The photo of Golden Gate before the bridge (#11), while ok as picture content, was interesting. I never thought of that place without the bridge. When the introduction says that Adams’ photos were the “visual equivalents to American values: a great democratic country, with wide, sweeping landscapes of grandeur and majesty,” I wonder if too much is read into these photos.