Ansel Adams In The National Parks: Photographs from America's Wild Places

For many people images of the major national parks in the US exist in the mind's eye as Ansel Adams photographs.

A dedicated environmentalist as well as a renowned artist, he was one of the 20th century's most ardent champions of the parks system. Through his photos, essays and letter-writing campaigns, he helped create new parks and better protect existing ones. He worked in more than 40 national parks over 50 years - including Shenandoah, the Great Smoky Mountains and Acadia in the East - and his work in the California High Sierra resulted in some of the most indelible images of the natural world ever made with a camera. 50 of the images in this volume have not been published in any authorized Ansel Adams book previously; many more are rarely seen. A substantial essay by photographic critic and historian Richard B. Woodward lays out Adams' significant role in tracing the history of American conservation.

The selection of photographs was made by Andrea G. Stillman, Adams' assistant late in life and a foremost expert on his work. A group of thumbnail images with brief narratives, enlivened by quotations from Adams, appears at the back of the book.

About the Photographer:

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) was one of the most prolific and highly acclaimed photographers of the twentieth century, and the author of dozens of publications. He helped establish the department of photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and founded the Friends of Photography in Carmel, California, and the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. A member of the board of directors of the Sierra Club for thirty-seven years, Adams was instrumental in the growth of the American conservationist movement.