January - April 2016
Ansel Adams - one of the former masters of photography, the founder of American sightseeing and landscape photography, has opened the eyes of the world to the beauty of the nature of the USA. Especially in his beloved Yosemite National Park stretched out in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. His life changed in his youth a gift in the form of a camera and trips to Yosemite. Adams mentioned it like this: „In the bright morning [we took] the grand, dusty, jolting ride in an open motor bus up the deepening, greening gorge to Yosemite. That first impression of the valley…was a culmination of experience so intense as to be almost painful. From that day in 1916, my life has been colored and modulated by the great earth gesture of the Sierra.”
Not only the photographs of old masters are inspiration but also their words, their thoughts. Photography, just like other genres of art, is subjective matter. Landscape photography, too, would seem so obvious when we look at what surrounds us. But Ansel Adams makes us perceive the landscape in a different way: „The effect of the natural scene on the artist is an emotional one," he said. "Photographing ‘scenery’ is the very thing I don’t believe in, because that’s often a two-dimensional affair. So the element of immediate, emotional impact is very important.”
Yosemite National Park, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, was founded in 1890. It still impresses with granite massifs, impressive waterfalls, crystalline streams and giant sequoia. This unique spectacle of nature is constantly inspiring. He inspires with images of nature but also with photos and words of his greatest spokesman - Ansel Adams. And it's worth giving in to this nature inspiration by listening to the photographs of Master Adams ...
Krzysztof Muskalski