Adams Ansel - Ansel Adams, an autobiography

If one feels inclined to embark on a journey into memory, after eighty-two years the experience promises to be kaleidoscopic and, perhaps, willfully colored. I have attempted to remove the filter from my memory lens, allowing more than my dreams to reach the page. Many things are clarified only by the passage of time. I distrust any lifelong memory of facts, but not the lifelong glow of experience that depends upon another form of reality. Possibly it would be too shattering to recall everything exactly, not because it was necessarily bad, but because it could reveal opportunities missed and errors made. Such might be best unremembered.

I think I have something to give my readers of the flavor of a good part of the twentieth century as seen through a life of creative experience. The worlds of nature and of people have been closely involved; a fact not too clear in the general opinion as I have chosen to stress the natural scene above other directions in my photography.

I am not going to retrace my life from past to present on a one-lane highway. I intend to recall varieties of experience, stretching tentacles of memory to the earliest sources in such sequences as seem logical, but without restrictions of time or place.

It is sometimes a desolate moment when one sees old photographs and realizes that all the humanity represented is dead and forgotten. Painting or sculpture of deceased persons, famous or not, does not evoke the same response in me as do photographs; there is a reality in the camera remembrances that compels respectful consideration. Likewise, literary discussion of the departed holds a certain poignancy and euphoric assurance of their continuing presence among us. As I write I find that while I use words denoting past situations and long-dead persons, I continue to acknowledge their living reality and their relationship to my life and work. It is my responsibility to recall them as essential spokes in the great wheel of life and to relate them to the conclusions I have drawn about my life and work.

Some of my friends were of tremendous importance in their time, yet what they accomplished was not the stuff of history books. Nevertheless, they continue in the lives of those influenced by their generosity and spirit. I have also known characters, both historical and famous, who were personally and immensely inspiring: Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Charles Sheeler, Dorothea Lange, Minor White, Imogen Cunningham, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, Edwin H. Land, David Hunter McAlpin, Georgia OKeeffe, John Marin. Then the roster broadens; literally thousands of wonderful friends have accompanied me in life and many now await me in the secret eternity to come. I have enjoyed the long voyage and I thank all for their companionship and their affection.

I wish to express my deep appreciation:

To Mary Alinder, my dear friend and editor, whose devotion and love gave me the daily inspiration to continue writing this book, and whose editorial genius assembled it into a meaningful whole. She truly knows me better than I know myself

To cherished Virginia, my wife of more than half a century, who gave excellent commentary on the text from the vantage point of remembering better than anyone both the joys and sorrows of my life in the world and in my art

To James Alinder, who kindly read this tome as an historian, editor, photographer, and friend; his insights have served to clarify my chaos

To Chris Rainier, Phyllis Donohue, and Rod Dresser for their continued and valued assistance

And to my colleagues at Little, Brown: Janet Swan Bush, George Hall, John Maclaurin, Ray Roberts, and Arthur Thornhill, Jr., whom I have come to know over the past decade to represent the finest in publishing.

ANSEL ADAMS

Carmel, California

March 1984