Ansel Adams in Color

I never warmed to Adams in B&W--his mountain sepulchers and silvery exaltations always felt like arm-twisting (sort of the same feeling I get from Oliver Stone, minus the exaltation).

But AA in color is, to me, more trustworthy, more down to earth (even with those big skies), quieter, more interesting.

I am struck by several of the quotes you selected for the slide show. Like this one: "Psychologically any one color is affected by other colors," Adams wrote, "by changes of light quality and intensity, by the inherent contrast of the scene..."

In other words, color is a complex language onto itself--obvious in painting but for a long time perhaps underappreciated in photography because of the verisimilitude between the photograph and the thing photographed. It's still an image--but one that gains its power from appearing closer to our everyday experience.

But in a photograph the language of color is activated--by its isolation in a frame and by the internal dynamics of form--in a different way than when you behold the thing itself.