Happy Birthday, Ansel Adams

And, "I was climbing the long ridge west of Mount Clark. It was one of those mornings where the sunlight is burnished with a keen wind and long feathers of cloud move in a lofty sky. The silver light turned every blade of grass and every particle of sand into a luminous metallic splendor; there was nothing, however small, that did not clash in the bright wind, that did not send arrows of light through the glassy air. I was suddenly arrested in the long crunching path up the ridge by an exceedingly pointed awareness of the light. The moment I paused, the full impact of the mood was upon me; I saw more clearly than I have ever seen before or since the minute detail of the grasses ... the small flotsam of the forest, the motion of the high clouds streaming above the peaks ... I dreamed that for a moment time stood quietly, and the vision became but the shadow of an infinitely greater world — and I had within the grasp of consciousness a transcendental experience."--Ansel Adams

 

The novelist Wallace Stegner wrote: "Photography is not button-pushing; the camera does not make its pictures automatically the way a lighthouse blinks its light. In a gamesome party mood Ansel will sometimes play lighthouse, rotating slowly on his axis, now and then emitting a low, intense, foghorn moan, and at every full rotation gleaming upon the company with teeth and eyeballs that seem to project through the beard a beam visible for miles. That is fun, and also art, for the playfulness of genius is still genius." 

via writersalmanac.publicradio.org

Comments

[Alfonso]

great guy, he was....I was fortunate to meet him and spend and afternoon with him in his home and darkroom.

How's Aldo?

[Marco]

Interesting that you got to spend some time with him. Thanks for asking about Aldo.