Ansel Adams (12 page)

In the world of straight photography toward which Ansel was moving, filters were prescribed only for making subtle contrast corrections. Ignoring those rules, Ansel instead employed the deep-red filter to radically transform his image from day into night. The historian Frederick R. Karl asserts that “any artist hoping to be Modern must develop beyond influences, must leap into unknown territory which then becomes his. That ‘leap’ which the artist is able to make becomes his membership card in the avant-garde.”
42
Ansel had probably been able to make the biggest leap in his creative lifetime because of what he learned from that first, simpler image,
Half Dome
.

Monolith
is Ansel’s most significant photograph because with this image he broke free from all photography that had come before. Nothing in it smacks of Pictorialism, or of Stieglitz, Strand, or Edward Weston. With its extreme manipulation of tonal values, it was definitely beyond the dicta of straight photography; this was a new vision, and it was his. In every sense of the word, he was now an important artist, with the concept of visualization representing his breakthrough.

Within a month of making
Monolith
, Ansel ceased all mention of a musical future in his correspondence. Years would pass, however, before he would dare permanently to venture so far away from the “straight” path; perhaps this photograph scared him, both in its strength and in the implication of where it could take him in photography.

Ansel came to the idea of visualization on his own, though in 1922 Edward Weston had hinted at the same theory in a speech before the Southern California Camera Club, saying, “I see my finished platinum print on the ground glass in all its desired qualities, before my exposure.”
43
These words were not published until 1980, but the idea, which Weston would later term pre-visualization, was nonetheless in the photographic wind. Ansel can be credited with the first published definition of visualization, written in April 1934 for
Modern Photography 1934–35: The Studio Annual of Camera Art.
Before exposing the negative, he explained, “the photographer visualizes his conception of the subject as presented in the final print.”
44

During that consequential day-hike to the Diving Board, Ansel had secured three images for the impending portfolio,
Monolith, Mount Galen Clark
and the one of Virginia, entitled
On the Heights.
The excursion had proven so successful that two weeks later, on Sunday, April 24, the group of comrades took off on another challenging hike, this time determined to be the first that year to climb the repetitive switchbacks of the Four Mile Trail from the valley floor to Glacier Point.
45
At Glacier Point, where the drifts were up to eight feet high, Ansel set up his tripod, its legs sunk almost all the way up in snow, and screwed the Korona view camera in place. The result was another strong photograph for the portfolio,
From Glacier Point
, with Half Dome in three-quarter profile dramatically framed on the top and left side by the dark silhouette of a tree. When they reached the small stone shelter at the apex of Glacier Point, Arnold Williams again used his friends, posing a very cute Virginia in her knitted Nordic cap and argyle sweater next to the fedora-topped Ansel and Cedric’s handsome profile seen under bright sunshine.
46

In addition to these four, Ansel selected fourteen other images for the portfolio, most made during his trips to the Kings River Canyon Sierra. All were from glass plates, save one on film. Glass plates reeked of the nineteenth century; by now most photographers had switched to sheet film, with the light-sensitive emulsion coated on a sturdy piece of cellulose acetate, but for several years to come Ansel would remain convinced that glass plates produced better negatives.
47

The portfolio was at last taking shape. Albert engaged the Grabhorn Press, staffed by world-respected designers and fine printers, to create an elegant presentation for the photographs. Black silk lined with gold satin was chosen for the portfolio covers, with the name embossed in gold on the front. A buff-colored, rough-textured, handmade paper folder encased each print, with the title typeset in black.
48

Convinced that few people other than Bender’s contacts would buy a portfolio if it was described as containing photographs, Jean Chambers Moore, the publisher, insisted on a different name. She was probably right: no market then existed for photographs as art. They christened the portfolio
Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras.
The name was derived either from Parmelia, a genus of lichen, or, as Ansel later claimed when asked what it meant, from “nothing. The publisher didn’t want to use the word ‘photograph,’ so she concocted this little kind of a bastard combination of Greek terms from black—‘melios.’ I don’t even think that is an accurate use of the term, but she liked it, so it was used.”
49
Ansel later considered his own abandonment of the word
photograph
cowardly, and he rued the day he was talked into using the word Sierras
.
In Spanish,
sierra
is a plural form meaning one mountain range; the added
s
denotes several ranges and as used here is incorrect.
50

Ansel made all the Parmelian prints on Kodak Vitava Athena Grade T Parchment, a cream-colored, gelatin-silver paper measuring twelve by ten inches, that is translucent when held up to the light. It was available commercially from 1925 to 1928. Formed of intense blacks with modest tonal separation, the silver image appears to sit within the matte, slightly textured paper, rather than on top of it, as would be the case with modern, glossy stock. This choice of paper cast a Pictorialist pall over the sharp focus of seventeen of the eighteen prints. (The exception is the soft-focus
Grove of Tamarack Pines.
)

With the publication of
Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras
in August 1927, Ansel’s career as a photographer looked both viable and appealing.
51
In the opinion of the august Professor LeConte, Ansel’s portfolio succeeded: “By keeping to a simple and rather austere style, his prints assume a dignity and beauty which is not generally conveyed by photography.”
52
Although Ansel later remembered that he completed about a hundred sets, some were destroyed in a warehouse fire, leaving approximately seventy-five that were sold and delivered.
53
Their sale at fifty dollars apiece grossed him about $3,750, a handsome sum in 1927, even after the expenses of paper, processing, packaging, typography, and production were deducted. For those with less abundant finances, Ansel also offered individual Parmelian prints at five dollars apiece. Over the next three years, from the spring of 1927 to the spring of 1930, he sold 1,943 photographs.
54

Forever cavalier toward Virginia’s feelings (with their Carmel tryst, she believed she had made the ultimate commitment), Ansel continued to come and go as he pleased, soon embarking on his first trip to the Southwest, with Albert Bender. Virginia kept her spirits up by entertaining Cedric; fleeing to Yosemite following the disintegration of his first marriage, he stayed with the Bests and endeared himself to the lady of the house, who came to value him as a close friend.
55
When her period (which she code-named Grandmother, the slang term commonly used at the time) was late, Virginia confided in Cedric. Although it was during Prohibition, he secured some whiskey that they hoped would ensure a visit from Grandmother, which at last arrived.
56

In July, Ansel was finally to become a member of his first full Sierra Club Outing. Joining an Outing was simplicity itself; the only requirements were membership in the club, payment of the trip’s fee, a sleeping bag, and a duffle packed with clothing. Virginia begged him to allow her to go along, promising that she would not bore him or get in his way. He agreed, and those few weeks, undocumented by letters, were probably the best period of their lives together.

Ansel had accumulated some savings from the sales of
Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras.
On little notice, he, Cedric, and Dorothy Minty presented themselves at the Bests’ Yosemite door on December 26, 1927. Immediate marriage to Virginia had not been on Ansel’s mind, but Cedric had made it his earnest project and at last convinced his friend that the time was right.
57
Ansel proposed, and Virginia accepted.

They were wed before eighteen guests in front of the fireplace at Best’s Studio at three in the afternoon on January 2, 1928.
58
Attired in hiking clothes, Cedric served as best man and violinist Minty and pianist Ernst Bacon performed the third movement of a César Franck sonata.
59
With no chance to leave the valley to shop, Virginia was married in her best dress, which came from Paris but unfortunately was black. Certain this was a bad omen, Ansel’s mother wept.
60
She and Charlie had brought the wedding ring, a gold band set with small diamonds, from San Francisco; Cedric had briefly lost it in the snow as he wrapped chains around the tires on Ansel’s car. Ansel wore the only pants he had brought—knickers—and his black basketball sneakers.
61
Their union was announced in a local paper with a grim choice of words: “A beautiful romance terminated in Yosemite Valley Sunday when the Reverend Luther Freeman of Pomona united Miss Virginia R. Best to Ansel E. Adams.”
62

Following a celebratory dinner, the newlyweds left with Cedric for Berkeley, where they spent their wedding night on a cold, uncomfortable single cot. But they were on a mission. The next day they had an appointment with Cedric’s architect, the great Bernard Maybeck. With the addition of their wedding money, they hoped to be able to realize their shared dream of a home and studio.

A short time later, Maybeck presented his drawings to the young couple. He had responded better to Virginia than to Ansel, and so had centered the house around her needs as a combination singer/housewife. Ansel’s requirements for a studio and darkroom were neglected in order to provide a suitable kitchen and singing space for Virginia. Within days, they received the estimate for construction costs, which far exceeded their budget. There was no more talk of Maybeck.
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Ansel devised a plan: the first three years of their marriage would be devoted to the development of their respective arts. Hoping to save up enough money for their own home, they moved in with his parents, where they stayed for the next two years. Virginia later maintained, “It wasn’t so bad.” She had waited for him for nearly seven years already, throughout the ups and downs of their sporadic courtship, and her commitment to their marriage was total.
64

Inspired by his status as head of a new household, and by the promise accorded his portfolio, Ansel began behaving like a professional photographer. Knowing that the members of the Sierra Club were a prime audience for his photographs, he took out a full-page advertisement in the 1928
Sierra Club Bulletin
65
to announce that

Not everyone was happy with his career decision, however. Ansel later recalled,

When I got doing more and more photography, and finally decided [I was] going to be a photographer, [my mother] was very upset. “You’re not going to be just a photographer, are you?” She was thinking of me being a musician, because photography was not known as an art by people of her age and type. If anything, it was something down on Filmore Street where you’d go and get a family portrait for a few dollars.
66

In absolute agreement that they needed to have a home separate from his family, Ansel and Virginia sadly concluded that they had enough funds either to buy land or to build a house, but not both. In an act of adulterated kindness, Ollie gave them her dahlia garden. They hired a neighborhood architect known for designing theaters and with him created a very Maybeck-like brown shingled house, with an open, two-storied living/music room and a loft with two bedrooms. Ansel and Virginia held their housewarming on May 4, 1930, lighting a fire in the fireplace under a mantel inscribed with Edward Carpenter’s words, “O Joy Divine of Friends.”
67
The fulfillment of their goal exacted its price: forsaking the independence they had longed for, they would now be physically bound to his parents for the rest of their lives, in houses twenty feet apart, at 129 (Charlie, Ollie, and Mary) and 131 (Ansel and Virginia) Twenty-fourth Avenue, San Francisco.