Review by Choice Review
A wonderfully gratifying book filled with remembrances and reminiscences of this remarkable photographer. Consisting of an almost perfect mix of interacting text and and images, including some unexpected candid snapshots of Adams himself, this work is an outstanding document of 20th-century American photography from the perspective of one of its leading progenitors. Adams's commentary reveals his associations with Bay Area intelligentsia (e.g., Albert Bender, Cedric Wright, and Robinson Jeffers); leading photographers of the day (e.g., Stieglitz, Strand, Steichen, and Weston); and painters (e.g., Rivera, Marin, and O'Keeffe); in addition, his many wilderness encounters have created for the reader an intensely full and rich aesthetic experience that delights as much as it informs. Much credit should be given to Mary Alinder for her assistance to Adams throughout the writing of his manuscript, and for her continued work on the project following his death in April 1984. Although much has been written on and by Adams, this well-designed title is singular in its scope and authority, and deserves to be in all academic libraries. Recommended for undergraduates, all levels, graduate students, and the general reader with an interest in contemporary photographers.-J.H. Carmin, University of Oregon
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
An accomplished musician, ardent conservationist, master photographer and teacher, Ansel Adams (19021984) made a major cultural contribution to the American nation, which awarded him the Medal of Freedom. This life story describes his boyhood discovery of California's Yosemite and High Sierra, a land he loved and photographed the remainder of his life. He traces the development of his esthetic beliefs and technical style, including the widely emulated Adams ``zone system'' of scenic composition and exposure. A chapter on his early efforts offers one of the best definitions yet articulated about photography as art. There are lively accounts of his acquaintance in conservation work with several U.S. presidents, and of relationships he had with photographer colleaguesStieglitz, Steichen, Weston, Georgia O'Keeffe, Nancy and Beaumont Newhall, Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham, Edwin Land and others. The 270 illustrations here include personal shots of family, friends and wilderness high jinks, as well as many Adams masterworks like ``Yosemite Half-Dome'' and ``Moonrise, Hernandez.'' BOMC featured alternate. October (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Adams's commitment to the serious study of photography lasted from 1930 until his death in 1984. He influenced hundreds of photographers through ex hibitions, books, and workshops. His work for the Sierra Club (photographic and otherwise) brought national recog nition. His autobiography moves from family reminiscences to his experiences with Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, the Newhalls, Geor gia O'Keefe, Steiglitz, and Steichen, giving Adams's perspective on devel opments in the visual arts. It portrays a deeply felt concern with both craft and aesthetics, and a lifelong dedication to preserving the glory of the Western en vironment. No library with any sort of collection in photography should be without this book. Illustrations not seen. J.R. Mosler, Hackettstown P.L., N.J. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Vigorous, humorous, and moving autobiography of a spectacular photograher, whose writing--like his pictures--is ""vibrant with light of a cool translucence and a great mystery of presence."" Adams completed the five-year task of writing his manuscript but had chosen pictures only for the first chapter when he died last year at 82. His autobiography proceeds as intuitively and fragmentarily as he suggests it will, with loved friends popping to mind. ""It is sometimes a desolate moment when one sees old photographs and realizes that all the humanity represented is dead and forgotten. . .there is a reality in the camera remembrances that compels respectful consideration."" At four, his nose was broken in the San Francisco earthquake. The family doctor advised his father it be left alone until Adams matured: ""Apparently I never matured, as I have yet to see a surgeon about it."" And a handsomely deformed earthquake of a beak it became! A hyperactive but sickly child, Adams was lucky to have a nurturing father, who first taught him as a child about the camera obscura, encouraged him as a classical pianist and his interest in the fine arts, took the family on trips to Yosemite, gave him Ms first Kodak Box Brownie, and bought the lad a burro when Ansel got his first job at 18 as custodian of Sierra Club's headquarters at the park. These years first brought him the magic he would know for a lifetime: "". . .to lie in a small recess of the granite matrix of the Sierra and watch the progress of dusk to night, the incredible brilliance of the stars, the waning of the glittering sky into dawn, and the following sunrise on the peaks and domes about me. And always the cool dawn wind that I believe to be the prime benediction of the Sierra. . .I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite."" At 15, he became a ""dark room monkey"" for a San Francisco neighbor who operated a photo-finishing business. As his mastery of the craft of photography develops, he has much to say about printing as well as intuitive subject-ideas, and then about creative photography: as Alfred Stieglitz tells him, ""When I make a photograph, I make love!"" The autobiography includes 270 black-and-white illustrations, including intimate snapshots and many monumental images never before published. His peaceful death scene, written by friend and editor Mary Street Alinder, is especially beautiful. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
