Editing Ansel Adams (section)

===Landscapes of the American West===
[[File:Adams The Tetons and the Snake River.jpg|thumb|upright=2|alt=A dramatically lit black-and-white photograph depicts a large river, which snakes from the bottom right to the center left of the picture. Dark evergreen trees cover the steep left bank of the river, and lighter deciduous trees cover the right. In the top half of the frame, there is a tall mountain range, dark but clearly covered in snow. The sky is overcast in parts, but only partly cloudy in others, and the sun shines through to illuminate the scene and reflect off the river in these places.|''[[The Tetons and the Snake River]]'' (1942)<ref name="National Archives 2017" />]]

Romantic landscape artists [[Albert Bierstadt]] and [[Thomas Moran]] portrayed the [[Grand Canyon]] and Yosemite during the 19th century, followed by photographers [[Carleton Watkins]], [[Eadweard Muybridge]], and [[George Fiske]].{{Sfn |Alinder|1996| p = 33}} Adams's work is distinguished from theirs by his interest in the transient and ephemeral.<ref name="Szarkowski 2018" /> He photographed at varying times of the day and of the year, capturing the landscape's changing light and atmosphere.<ref name="Morgan 2018">{{Cite book | title = The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists | volume = 1 | last = Morgan | first = Ann Lee | date = May 24, 2018 | publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn = 978-0-19-180767-1 | chapter = Adams, Ansel | access-date = November 26, 2018 | chapter-url = http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191807671.001.0001/acref-9780191807671-e-7 | doi = 10.1093/acref/9780191807671.001.0001}}</ref><ref name="Wells 2005">{{Cite book | publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn = 978-0-19-866271-6 | last = Wells | first = Liz | title = The Oxford Companion to the Photograph | chapter = Adams, Ansel | access-date = July 22, 2018 | date = 2005 | chapter-url = http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662716.001.0001/acref-9780198662716-e-12 | doi = 10.1093/acref/9780198662716.001.0001 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont0000unse_f1h1 | editor1-last = Nicholson | editor1-first = Angela }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last = Lorenz | first = Richard | journal = Oxford Art Online | title = Adams, Ansel | format = Reference | year = 2003 | url = http://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000000436 | doi = 10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T000436 | isbn = 9781884446054 | access-date = December 2, 2018 | archive-date = December 2, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181202070532/http://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000000436 | url-status = live }}</ref>

Art critic John Szarkowski wrote, "Ansel Adams attuned himself more precisely than any photographer before him to a visual understanding of the specific quality of the light that fell on a specific place at a specific moment. For Adams the natural landscape is not a fixed and solid sculpture but an insubstantial image, as transient as the light that continually redefines it. This sensibility to the specificity of light was the motive that forced Adams to develop his legendary photographic technique."<ref>{{cite book|last=Szarkowski|first=John|title=Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art|publisher=N.Y. Graphic Society|year=1973|isbn=978-0-87070-515-1|location=New York|page=144}}</ref>

The creation of Adams's grand, highly detailed images was driven by his interest in the natural environment.<ref name="Morgan 2018" /> With increasing environmental degradation in the West during the 20th century, his photos show a commitment to conservation.<ref name="Wells 2005" /> His black-and-white photographs were not just documentation, but reflected a sublime experience of nature as a spiritual place.<ref name="Turnage 2018" />

In 1955, Edward Steichen selected Adams's ''Mount Williamson'' for the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition ''[[The Family of Man]]'',<ref>{{Cite book | editor-first = Jerry | editor-last = Mason | others = Steichen, Edward (organizer); Sandburg, Carl (writer of foreword); Norman, Dorothy (writer of added text); Lionni, Leo (book designer); Stoller, Ezra (photographer) | title = The family of man : the photographic exhibition | date = 1955 | publisher = Published for the Museum of Modern Art by Simon and Schuster in collaboration with the Maco Magazine Corporation | url = https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10809600 | access-date = August 4, 2018 | archive-date = September 18, 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190918233821/https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10809600 | url-status = live }}</ref> which was seen by nine million visitors. At {{convert|10|by|12|ft}}, his was the largest print in the exhibition, presented floor-to-ceiling in a prominent position as the backdrop to the section "Relationships",<ref>Sollors, Werner (2018) "''The Family of Man'': Looking at the Photographs Now and Remembering a Visit in the 1950s" in {{cite book | editor1 = Hurm, Gerd | editor2 = Reitz, Anke | editor3 = Zamir, Shamoon | title = The family of man revisited : photography in a global age | date = 2018 | publisher = London I.B.Tauris | isbn = 978-1-78672-297-3}}</ref> as a reminder of the essential reliance of humanity on the soil. However, despite its striking and prominent display, Adams expressed displeasure at the "gross" enlargement and "poor" quality of the print.<ref>{{cite book | author1 = Sandeen, Eric J | title = Picturing an exhibition : the family of man and 1950s America | year = 1995 | publisher = University of New Mexico Press | edition = 1st | pages = 47, 59, 169 | isbn = 978-0-8263-1558-8}}</ref>