Ansel Adams recounts:
How different my life would have been if it were not for these early hikes in the Sierra - if I had not experienced that memorable first trip to Yosemite - if I had not been raised by the ocean - if, if, if! Everything I have done or felt is in some way influenced by the impact of the Natural Scene. It is easy to recount that I camped many times at Merced Lake, but it is difficult to explain the magic: 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 around me. And always that cool dawn wind that I believe to be the prime benediction of the Sierra. These qualities to which I still deeply respond were distilled into my pictures over the decades. I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite. (Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 339.)
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For a brief biography of Ansel Adams, click here.
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