sinwp rss feed for PI Articles

articles/Landscape/footstepsadams

In The Footsteps of Ansel Adams

by

By John Young

My early career as a Research Chemist took me to mines in the Rocky Mountains. While I was up there I developed an interest in Landscape photography.

When my wife died in 1998 I decided to take photographic lessons with Winston Ingram. Having been given a very good grounding by Winston, I went on a trip to America so that I could follow in the footsteps of Ansel Adams. I have always admired his black and white photographs. To follow in his footstep means you must visit Yosemite National Park and the High Sierras. So I set up a trip to visit 12 National Parks including Yosemite.

When you first arrive at Yosemite its beauty immediately captures you. It is easy to see why Ansel Adams fell in love with it in 1916.- he was using a box brownie at this time. Before Adams there had been Watkins and Weed and Muybridge, the great photographers of the heroic wet-plate period. They had done their work more than 50 years before Adams started.

The one feature in the park which has been captured by Carleton Watkins in 1880, and Adams almost a century later is El Capitan. When you first see the mountain you can see why it draws artists, photographers and now climbers. The park has many other features to photograph but the Half Dome is worth the effort. Ansel Adams said "I have photographed Half Dome innumerable times, but it is never the same Half Dome, never the same light or same mood."

I think Yosemite can be summed up by the saying 'the great rocks of Yosemite, expressing qualities of timeless, yet intimate grandeur, are the most compelling formations of their kind. We should not casually pass them by for they are the very heart of the earth speaking to us."



Updated 27/04/2026 16:44:22 Last Modified: Monday, 27 April 2026