"There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer."

One of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century, Adams spent a significant part of his adult life in Yosemite National Park. Born in San Francisco and trained as a musician, by 1920 he had begun making trips into the High Sierra; in 1924 he made his first important photographs there and began to publish both images and writings. Adams's work in both media contributed greatly to the American conservationist movement. Adams's work is characterized by meticulous technique and a dramatic celebration of the natural world. Along with Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and Willard Van Dyke, Adams was dedicated to a "simple and direct presentation of purely photographic means."

Source: Merry A. Foresta. American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996).

Pictured: Ansel Adams (1902–1984), North Dome, Basket Dome, Mount Hoffman, Yosemite,about 1935, silver print, 6 1/2 x 8 5/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.