9781422276433

I ntroduction

thought that if we were tied together, we were safe.” Adams recalls one photograph he made on a sunnyspringafternoonin1927thatforeverchanged hisunderstandingofthemediumofphotography.He luggedhis forty-poundcamerapack—whichinclud- ed aKorona viewcamera, an array of lenses, two fil- ters, six holders with twelve glass plates, and a wooden tripod—up to an area of Yosemite known as the Diving Board, which commanded a view of the park’s most spectacular sight, the face of the Half Dome cliff. Down to his last two slides, Ansel set up his cameraatmid-afternoonwitha sharp81/2-inch Zeiss Tessar lens, whichhe coveredwitha standard K2 yellow filter to darken the bright sky.

Grand Sentinel Typically, Adams used a lens with a long focal length to flatten the planes of his subject into a more abstract composition. Grand Sentinel is a bold composition of black and gray planes meeting at sharply defined edges. The forms draw the eye upward to the distant peaks.

7