What Else Inspires Me: Ansel Adams

I don't know how or when it was in my childhood growing up in an area of farms and rivers, that Ansel Adams came into my world. I can't pinpoint the day that anyone said, "Here is Ansel Adams, study his photography, and you will understand what it is to love the west."

You see, I can't, because they were always there. Perhaps it was an Adams print in the library, or a calendar. Even then they struck a familiar chord: I had experienced the beauty of foothills, the craggy cliffs of beaches, the solitary cypress tree on a point in Carmel.

"Monolith" The face of Half Dome," 1927 by Ansel Adams

And so it was with great pleasure that I got to view all 78 of Ansel Adams' prints at the small but beautiful Bowers Museum. This hand-picked selection of prints by Ansel Adams in the years before his death is known as "The Museum Set." The stipulation of this show is that it has to be shown all together in a public setting, and that it may never be kept shuttered in some corporate board room.

Adams was passionate about nature, the preservation of it, and also that the public be able to see (and even own) his work. I saw images that I had seen on posters and cards as a child: Oak Tree, Snowstorm, Dogwood, El Capitan, Half Dome, as well as a picture of Georgia O'Keefe. I was comfortable surrounded by these photographs.

I stayed for a lecture by his one-time assistant, photographer John Sexton about the creative process and his mentor and friend, Ansel Adams. He showed a first print from a negative. It was flat, emotionless, evoked no particular passion. And then he showed what Adams brought out of a given scene, which was his emotional interpretation. But to get it, took countless prints of the negative. It took time, it couldn't be hurried. He played with light, bringing for texture, focus and a sharpness of not only the physical picture itself, but also directing us to look closely.

See the gravel? The roughness of the granite? Imagine the clouds that hang loosely around the top of the mountain, or feel the delicate dusting of the snow. Can you feel the strength of the oak, its' dormancy in the winter that will give rise to life in only a few short months. Do you know how important this is, especially now, to see nature and give it a chance?

This lesson learned is one that I could apply to writing, or even to life and raising my kids. First pass, yes, but don't forget there's a second, third, fourth, fifth and umpteenth to burnish and add luster to what we create, to instill that emotional core that drives life itself.

Ansel Adams: Classic Images at the Bowers Museum Now through May 13. Special lecture on April 14 by Chris Rainer, Photographer and Assistant to Ansel Adams from 1980-1985. The Bowers is a jewel, probably one of the best small museums in Southern California, situated between a bustling downtown Santa Ana and genteel Floral Park. It's not snotty like so many of those other museums in So Cal. What distinguishes the Bowers is that the shows are accessible emotionally and intellectually without a fuss. Very nice lunch available at Tangata.