Ansel Adams (11 page)

In fact, Ansel had given his life not to God but to a pretty violinist named Mildred Johnson. His infatuations with Mildred, Dorothy Minty, Margaret Colf, and a few others never lasted long, so great was the pressure of his intense adulation. Each young woman in turn simply got worn out by his attempts to control most aspects of her life.
19

Ansel seemed able to assume only one of two roles when relating to another: he was either the teacher or the student. He found no one but Virginia who was willing to put up with his endless lecturing on education, conduct, and discipline. For her part, Virginia coped in a passive-aggressive way, listening thoughtfully to everything he said and then doing pretty much as she wanted.

Somehow, despite and throughout his wanderings, Virginia remained determined to marry Ansel, and sent him her poems and snips of aromatic pine boughs to remind him of what she was fond of describing as “my world.” That world, of course, was Yosemite, the key to her eventual success with him.

But in San Francisco during the winter of 1925–1926, following his breakup with Virginia, Ansel toiled at his piano lessons and earned some money as a music teacher, offering ten lessons for ten dollars.
20
He formed the Milanvi Trio, composed of violinist Mildred, pianist Ansel, and dancer Vivienne, whence the name. Announcements were printed, and they were booked for a smattering of engagements, but Ansel was a failure as an accompanist, inevitably drowning out the violin and racing ahead of the dancer.
21
He had an elegant calling card printed with the inscription “Ansel Easton Adams, Piano,” in a serifed font. But in the end, he felt dismally stalled at a local level of mild musical recognition. No one ever “discovered” him, and the future lost its promise. As the string of women evaporated, his disenchantment with the music scene increased, until he finally dismissed it as tawdry and unworthy of his involvement.
22

Ansel returned to Yosemite and to the arms of the unspoiled, ever-patient, and welcoming Virginia. They traveled to Carmel for a brief getaway during which, on Easter, April 17, 1927, they managed to elude whatever chaperone they must have had and made love for the first time. Virginia was stricken with adoration. She discovered her own intense physical needs and yearned to be with Ansel all the time.
23

It was a momentous time in Ansel’s life in more ways than one. Just as those who had first gazed on Yosemite had been at a loss to describe it, so had Ansel been. Still hard at work on his first portfolio, set into motion in 1926 by Albert Bender, he knew that not one of his photographs yet communicated the deepest feelings he had for that landscape. If it is possible for anything to dominate such a spectacular valley, Half Dome does: it is Yosemite’s greatest jewel, an incomparable shape rising abruptly from the valley’s floor—its west-facing flank long ago sheared cleanly away, leaving it half missing and half there. The Ahwahneechee called Half Dome “Tis-sa-ack,” meaning cleft rock. John Muir referred to the peak as “Tissiack.” Its massive form measures three-quarters of a mile tall from the valley floor and four-tenths of a mile thick, with a broad top spreading across thirteen acres that culminates in the Visor, a granite ledge overhang.
24

With the deadline for the portfolio fast approaching, Ansel realized he must make the best possible photograph of Half Dome, one that revealed the essence of this matchless mountain. On Sunday, April 10, he achieved the biggest artistic breakthrough of his life: his quintessential image of Half Dome that he titled
Monolith, The Face of Half Dome
.
25

In the years to come Ansel declared that he knew in his mind’s eye the image he would make and it must be from the Diving Board, a rock slab on Half Dome’s shoulder that projects thirty feet out over the valley nearly 3,500 feet below. How had he known? He had been at that location at least twice before and was fully aware of the difficulty of reaching that place, especially in April with the snows of winter only partially melted. The last time he had been at the most just eighteen years old, a beginner in photography, and most likely without a camera, unless it was quite small.
Monolith
was such an abrupt change from anything else he had done. How could he have made two such giant leaps in one afternoon—the spare, yet commanding framing of Half Dome in the first exposure then the deep-red filter in the second and final exposure? Ansel confessed to ruining at least four of his twelve negatives that day through his own mistakes—overexposure, an ineptly placed plate holder, and blurred images from the unhappy combination of a stiff breeze and a telephoto lens fitted with a red filter that demanded a long exposure time.
26
The entire purpose of that trip on that day was to make a picture of Half Dome worthy of his first portfolio. After so many sloppy technical errors, why did he approach Half Dome with only two remaining glass plates, unless he was completely confident of the image he was to make?

Another print by Ansel has been discovered, sold at a photography auction in 2012. Titled
Half Dome
in Ansel’s hand on the print, it carries nowhere near the power of
Monolith
, but perhaps here is that first study that allowed him to return home, develop the negative, and make a print that demanded study of how to make a stronger image, as he had done with
East Vidette
.

Ansel made
Half Dome
from Glacier Point, 3,214 feet above the valley floor, a position that provided a panoramic view to the east including Half Dome, rising 1,500 feet higher, and the snowy Sierra Nevada beyond.
27
There he had set up his six-and-a-half-by-eight-and-a-half-inch Korona, an early twentieth-century view camera that required glass-plate negatives rather than sheet film that was becoming available, and attached his Turner Reich triple convertible lens. A very versatile lens, it had three groups of elements that could be used to provide different focal lengths. The three groups combined gave a normal focal length of ten-and-a-half inches, the rear element alone, eighteen inches, and the front element, twenty-four inches. Since Glacier Point is quite some distance away from his chosen subject, to fill the negative with Half Dome, he used the twenty-four-inch element which required it be placed behind the shutter where the rear element had been. He had to stretch the camera bellows a full twenty-four inches from the film plane to get the image in focus and the telephoto effect he desired.

Ansel gave this possibly unique print of
Half Dome
to Albert Bender. Ansel must have been proud of it, surely he would bring only what he considered his best efforts to his very important patron. But
Half Dome
does not communicate Ansel’s great passion for this fabled place. A simple study of forms and contrasting tones, the great rock visually recedes, its face still in shadow, its backdrop a massive mountain blanketed in winter white, and all surmounted by a blank, unfiltered sky.
28

Ansel realized he must get physically closer to Half Dome, and that place would be the Diving Board which would provide both a panorama to the west and a tremendous near view of Half Dome’s towering, sheer vertical western wall. He invited Virginia and Cedric, along with two other friends on the full-day journey. Traditionally Yosemite Valley locals would head out on the trails each spring to be the first that year to achieve Glacier Point, the top of Half Dome, or the Diving Board. It was considered a newsworthy event. This was no relatively easy hike, but rather a rigorous scramble (as they fondly termed such challenging excursions), much of it free of trails though not of snow. For traction, the others relied on the stickiness of the soles of their hiking shoes, while Ansel swore by his basketball shoes.

They climbed up to the base of Nevada Fall via the Le Conte Gully, a steep crack in the dark granite that was extremely cold and definitely dangerous but the most direct route to their destination. A few years earlier, on a trip to this treacherous place with Uncle Frank, Ansel had thought to himself that there were pictures to be made here. On a second occasion, in 1920, Ansel had nearly died climbing down from the Le Conte Gully when his hiking companion slipped to the very brink, saved by a last-minute grasp of a small tree. Under Ansel’s calm direction, both men took off their shoes and socks. Ansel slowly shuffled barefoot atop the tilting granite to link belts with that of his friend. Somehow together they crossed the remaining thirty-five treacherous feet to safety. Thankfully, Ansel had not been carrying a large camera, but his comrade, a painter, lost all of his drawings.
29

On this April 10, 1927, adventure, one of the group of five was Arnold Williams, a professional photographer employed by Yosemite Park and Curry Company. His account of their trip, illustrated by his own photographs, appeared in various newspapers.
30
In one picture Ansel and Virginia posed as his models enjoying the view of the entire valley before them. In another, the small figure of Virginia is seated on the ground, her back leaning casually against a pine tree. He noted:

We started from the floor of Yosemite Valley by the Glacier Point long trail. A short distance up the trail we took the steep climb toward Sierra Point, leaving the latter trail about one-half way up. From this point we were away from all beaten trails until our return late in the evening to the trail near Vernal Falls.

The day was excellent for picture making. Each member of the party had opportunities galore to excel their previous efforts in securing unusual as well as attractive views of Yosemite Valley, the canyon’s rim and the face of Half Dome. We had many thrills en route to the Diving Board but were well repaid for our efforts by the pictures secured.
31

Compounding the arduousness of Ansel’s journey was his backpack, which contained the same Korona view camera he had used to make
Half Dome
, a couple of lenses and filters, but just a dozen Wratten Panchromatic glass plates. A heavy wooden tripod was tied on to the backpack with rope. He was a lanky twenty-five years old, six feet tall, and hardly strapping.
32
He wore a well-seasoned leather jacket, Levi’s, sunglasses, and a snappy fedora.
33
Ansel stopped to photograph as they climbed, using a long-focus (telephoto) lens to rein in distant Mount Galen Clark.
34
Virginia, a courageous climber able to keep up with, and sometimes surpass her male companions, carried a motion-picture camera; she was clothed in hiking pants, a heavy sweater, and a small-brimmed hat.
35

They arrived at the Diving Board only to find the sun too high and Half Dome still in shadow, as it had been when he made
Half Dome
. This time he waited for the light. They ate lunch and Ansel made several more exposures, including a charming image of the distant, tiny figure of the intrepid Virginia standing on the end of the Diving Board, with thousands of feet of air beneath her.
36
An amazing movie, less than two minutes long, part shot by Virginia and part by one of the other hikers, shows how treacherous was their journey, a foolhardy escapade, but also how fantastic were the views of Half Dome.
37

Ansel was left with only two remaining glass plates to make the image that had been the reason for this journey. At two-thirty, as light from the westward-drifting sun began directly to illuminate the face of Half Dome, he focused his Korona, which was fitted with a slightly wide-angle Tessar lens and a K2 yellow filter to reduce the atmospheric haze and render a light gray sky. After determining the exposure, he set the lens, inserted the glass-plate holder, removed the dark slide, and then squeezed the cable release.

Ansel’s epiphany occurred after he made that exposure. Perhaps inspired by one of Carpenter’s maxims, “The object of the Fine Arts is to convey an emotion,”
38
he realized that the negative he had just made would not contain the information needed for the finished print he saw in his mind’s eye, one that would communicate the powerful emotions he felt in Half Dome’s presence.
39
He later termed this concept visualization—the notion that the photographer should know how the finished print will look before the negative is even exposed. Visualization became the new cornerstone of his photographic philosophy.
40

Ansel had brought with him a deep-red Wratten No. 29 filter purchased two years earlier. Its effect, he knew, would be to greatly increase the tonal contrasts to quite dramatic effect: blackening skies while increasing the apparent brightness of snow. Ansel now removed the yellow filter from over the lens and replaced it with the deep-red filter. He increased the exposure time to five seconds and exposed his last glass plate. With this one act, Ansel stepped beyond the traditional photographic boundaries of the day. The sky was no longer light and bright as it actually appeared; instead, it became a black velvet background for the smooth outline of the shattered, flat-planed face of Half Dome, rising majestically above its snowy shoulders. Looking at this image, we see Half Dome not with our own eyes but through Ansel Adams’s soul.

This was hardly the first time Ansel had skewed the scene before him. Various pictorial conventions, such as the soft-focus lens and the bromoil print, certainly changed reality as well, and a case in point is his soft-focus 1921 print
A Grove of Tamarack Pine
(later entitled
Lodgepole Pines
). His whole life long, Ansel had a soft spot in his heart for this picture and the memories it held. The soft-focus lens refracted the highlights, producing a glowing luminosity that captured the mood of a magical summer afternoon,
41
but in adopting this technique, Ansel surrendered the most basic quality (and strength) of photography: the ability of a lens to provide an image of acute sharpness.