A visit with legendary photographer Ansel Adams

My visit with Ansel Adams — a legend among landscape photographers — began with a walk up a rising, curving, sandy driveway to his wooded half-hidden home that overlooks the Pacific Ocean at Carmel Highlands. A brick walk led to his front door where a small metal sign announced, VISITS BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. Hesitant to ring the doorbell but reluctant to leave, I decided to ring and seek an appointment.

Mrs. Adams opened the door, introduced herself, and greeted me with a smile. She was a small, white-haired, blue-eyed woman of warm words. I introduced myself as an admirer of Ansel Adams photography and as a young landscape photographer from the Midwest. She invited me into their home and explained Ansel was on the phone as she pointed toward the high-beamed studio beyond. She said he could meet with me this morning before going into town about noon on business. I thanked her and waited for Ansel in the entryway. His loud animated voice filled the studio as he continued and then completed his conversation.

Ansel strode through the studio and toward the front door with heavy steps that echoed from the bare, dark, wooden floor. He was not a tall man but rather rotund with a large round head, full beard, and a broad smile. Rotund and robust were my first impressions of him. His sharp, clear, hazel-brown eyes were separated by a sharp, misshapen, slightly off-center nose, the nose he broke during the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 at age four. He wore a gray flannel shirt, a plain blue tie with a simple silver clasp, dark gray pants, and Wellington boots. He greeted me and we shook hands as he welcomed me into his home.

We briefly exchanged introductions, as if he needed to be introduced, before the huge reproduction of this famous photograph, “Monolith: The Face of Half Dome,” the classic portrait of Yosemite’s famous granite cliff, an image he had made nearly fifty years earlier. Behind him, lining the slate-blue walls of his vaulted studio were other famous prints of Yosemite Valley. His fine photographs illustrated both his unique vision as a photographer and his deep reverence for the land he loved. The bright ambient light from the west-facing windows gave a sense of eloquence to both the man and his work.

We moved from the studio to a comfortable, lumpy coach in the adjoining room to talk together. We sat before a large rough, river-stone fireplace blackened by years of use. To the left of the fireplace was a series of thick planks that served as bookshelves. They were lined with art and photography books. The large Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series of environmental books stood out from among the others, a dozen tall volumes, their white dust jackets darkened and somewhat torn from frequent handling by many readers over the years.

In this setting, we talked of his work: of teaching, of photography, of printing, and of the Sierra Club. He expressed concern for the problems of our cities and the plight of our planet Earth. He was a personable man with interesting and interested eyes. More youthful in energy than most men half his age, he spoke with intensity and a passion for photography. We discussed photography as an art form for the humanizations of others, an art form for the development of more sensitive people who may become more responsive to and more caring for the environment and for each other.

Ansel Adams said he was not optimistic about the possibility of people responding to their human needs for sanctuaries and the natural needs for such places.

He spoke of the lack of natural preservation and natural recreation area in so many of our cities. He reflected upon a recent trip to the Midwest and his impressions, his concerns with the many woeful abuses of the environment: water pollution, air pollution, noise pollution, urban blight. Man, he said, has made his home the city unfit to live in and does not know what to do now.

We paused and looked out his “window to the world,” as he called it, a large plate-glass wall that faced the rugged Carmel Coast and the Pacific Ocean. He said this place, his home in the woods, this retreat by the sea, was indeed most rewarding. It was inspiring, nurturing his creativity as a photographer. He cautioned that the sheer size of the dramatic California Coast from Carmel to Big Sur seemed to remove the individual from close personal, meaningful contact. Its magnificence made it difficult to see the small details within the larger picture. People, he continued, have a way of forgetting to look where they are walking. They forget to see the things that are close at hand and under foot: pine needles, small stones, little leaves, simple streams, the basic elements of the environment, the elements of intimate landscapes.

We talked of other photographers, Edward Weston and his son Cole, his neighbors in Carmel Highlands, and their work in black and white and color. I mentioned the fine color landscape photographs of Eliot Porter, his friend, whose images of New England woodlands are stunning environmental statements. We talked of his work and future projects, of plans for Volume II of “The Eloquent Light,” his continuing biography by Nancy and Beaumont Newhall. We talked of photography, of teaching, of writing, of learning. He indicated he has given up his music for his commitment to the work of the Sierra Club. Regrettably, he simply does not have time for all of his many interests.

His hands, which he used frequently to rub his seemingly tired eyes, were short, stubble-haired, and veined. His blunt fingers, so very skilled in working with a camera or playing a concert piano, seemed weathered and worn.

Time became the dominant element of our talk: time for action, time remaining for preserving the environment, time for writing, time for teaching, time for talking, time to meet the many demands of the day. And all too soon it was nearly noon and we were out of time. I thanked him for the time we had shared, the time he had given me. He smiled, shook my hand, and asked me to come again. Before I left, he asked me to sign the petition against offshore oil drilling by Union Oil on the California coast. While I did so he went to his desk for a moment. As I turned to thank him again, he handed me a gift.

It was a portfolio of black and white prints from his recent exhibit in San Francisco.

I thanked him for the gifts of our conversation and his photographs and we said goodbye.

As I walked down his sandy driveway, I looked west through the grove of wind-blown old cypress trees to the Carmel Coast and the distant fine line between the sea and the sky. Great gray green waves were slowly rolling in, advancing and then breaking upon the jagged rocks. In the cool gray mist of mid-day, I could hear the soothing sound of the surf below the Carmel Highlands home of Ansel Adams.