Adams, Ansel - Yosemite and the Range of Light

Boston, Massachusetts, New York Graphic Society, 1979. First Edition. Hardcover. Size: Folio - over 12 - 15" tall. An Introduction by Paul Brooks opens and greatly augments this Very Good condition copy. Bound simply in purple cloth over boards, very lightly worn and abraded, burgundy cloth-backed spine, and with sharp and distinct gilt lettering to spine, still quite tank-like of binding and heft. Produced in an oblong quarto hardcover format, boards measuring 12 1/4" tall by 15 1/2" tall. Twenty-eight pages of text, and then 116 duotone images of a sacred space, 116 images reproduced by the finest process of double impression offset lithography. List of Plates at book's end. These images cluster in the 1924-1927 time period by which time Adams had co-founded and begun to lead the Sierra Club. Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 - April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West, especially of California, Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks in particular. He was also a proponent of technical virtuosity in photography and its teaching to students which, his Wikipedia page entry says, advocated for the engagement of "pure" photography "which favored sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph." He published plentiful technical books in a series of primers. Ansel Adams was also a life-long advocate for environmental conservation about which he writes passionately in the Foreword. He visited Yosemite National Park first as a 12-year-old in 1914. The fine portrait at frontis opposite title page was taken in 1944.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. . . . Very Good