Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Reproductions of Some Outstanding Adams' Images
Review: This book is flawed by the images selected to be in it. The other main weakness is that the book is clearly overpriced. The good news, however, is that the image sizes are large enough to capture the power and majesty of Adams' work. The reproduction quality is superb, as well! The essay by William Turnage is an excellent discussion of the roles of Thoreau, Muir, and Adams in creating the awareness that has helped us to save and cherish some of what remains of our American wilderness. The artist-turned-conservation leader, Adams' role, is a particularly important function in our society. The artist helps us to experience what we have never seen while the conservation leader takes actions that galvanize the emotions that are evoked by nature and the artist into helpful improvements. When the artist and conservation leader are the same person, there is a combined power and continuity of vision that is irresistible. Thank goodness! Adams is someone we should all admire for another reason. His nature photography and conservation efforts were hobbies, labors of love. Photography of nature is a field that offered meaningful remuneration only in recent years. His day job was doing commercial photography. He took pictures of dead people in the Los Angeles morgue as well as of open pit copper mines in Utah. What we admire about him was what he did on weekends, before and after work, and on vacations. Because he wanted the most remarkable images, this often meant hiking before dawn in difficult winter conditions to remote peaks to get just the right perspective. Andrea Stillman did a good job of selecting Adams' quotes for her opening remarks. "Photography is a way of telling what you feel about what you see." " . . . [T]he turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit . . ." is what his work is about. Throughout the book, you will find other quotes about Adams' reflections on the wilderness. They are well selected and add much to your consideration of what his images mean. Here are some of my favorite photographs as reproduced in this book: Santa Elena Canyon, Big Bend National Park, Texas, 1947 Monument Valley, Arizona, 1942 Canyon de Chelly National Monument, 1942 Sand Dunes, Sunrise, Death Valley, 1948 Sand Dune, White Sands National Monument, 1942 The White Stump, Sierra Nevada City, 1936 Terraya Creek, Dogwood Rain, Yosemite, 1948 Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite, 1944 Half Dome, Winter, from Glacier Point, Yosemite, 1940 Leaves, Mills College, Oakland, California, 1931 Maroon Bells, Near Aspen, Colorado, 1951 Old Faithful (4), Yellowstone, 1942 Mount McKinley and . . . Lake, Denali National Park, Alaska, 1947 After you have finished being refreshed and rejuvenated by these inspiring images, I suggest that you contemplate what the wilderness meant to your grandparents and parents, what it meant to you as a child, what it means to you now, and what it means to your children. If you are like me, you will see that wilderness is rapidly receding as a concept as well as a reality. What are we losing? How can we reverse that loss? Understand all of Nature's message for us by living in harmony with her!
Rating: 
Summary: Awful quality
Review: This book is not worth the paper, believe me! I don't know if it's because 'printed in China', but the photos are not comparable with other Ansel Adams books or calendars. Please don't mix it up with the hardcover version which is >100$.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful !!
Review: When I see the pictures of america's landscapes taken by Ansel Adams and I read the Muir's text, I can't let to think the art of Adams is Wonderful.
The images let to see the landscapes througth the color's abstraction sometimes in an unreal way, given an aspect non reproduced at simple view.
| 
