Exhibition curated by Dr. Steven D. Hoelscher, Faculty Curator for Photography, Harry Ransom Center, Stiles Professor of American Studies and Geography

GIS exhibition companion created by Stephanie Zeller, PhD student, Department of Geography and the Environment

American landscape photographer Ansel Adams (1902–1984) described his approach to picture-making as one of “visualization"—the photographic expression of what the environment looks and feels like to the artist. Adams put it this way: “The first step toward visualization—and hence toward expressive interpretation—is to become aware of the world around us in terms of the photographic image.”

Adams’s description of his creative process serves as the point of departure for this exhibition, which showcases the many ways that photographers have visualized the American environment. It begins with Ansel Adams, whose photographs of pristine nature—all pictured in razor-sharp focus, with subtle gradations of light and dark, and deep recessions of space—remain some of the most immediately recognizable environmental images of our time. 

Before Adams, commercial photographers pictured environments to call attention to dramatic landscapes for visitors and distant viewers. Around the same time, the federal government employed photographers to document the expansive western territories that had recently been claimed by the United States. These early “view” photographers provide the immediate visual legacy that Adams drew on during his long career. 

For Adams’s contemporaries, and those who have followed, his legacy looms large. His photographs have inspired environmental consciousness for many. But many of those influenced by Adams have chosen to photograph exactly what he left out of his visualizations: the impact of humans on the natural environment. 

When Ansel Adams and his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors photographed the environment, they were thinking about landscapes not only as geographic spaces but also as visual variables—forms that could be manipulated within the picture-plane to produce a compelling image. But the extent to which photographs are “visualizations” can be difficult to conceptualize without some point of comparison.  

This online exhibition companion uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping techniques to illustrate these relationships. GIS is a type of spatial technology used to analyze data that correlates with places on Earth. Combining draped satellite images with three-dimensional topographical data, GIS programs create an approximation of the landscape as seen from a certain point of view. When placed side-by-side with an image from this exhibition, we see not only how the environment changed through time, but also how each artist manipulated their naked-eye view through the photographic medium.  

We have sought to connect each photograph in our exhibition with a precise location, but in some cases, we had to make an estimation using historical documents and records. Each GeoMarker is accompanied by a digital reproduction of the exhibition image, information about the image, and in some cases, an audio file.

Navigate the exhibit by section using the table of contents, or scroll down to move through the exhibit in order. Click or touch the 3D rendered map to explore the perspective. To return home to the original perspective, click the small home button in the corner. (If the GIS window does not automatically provide the correct perspective, try clicking the home button to fix the glitch.)

Scroll down to begin, or use the pinned navigation bar above to jump to a section.

Ansel Adams’s 1929 Sierra Club Outing is an early example of a format that he came to value greatly: a portfolio of unbound photographic prints. Comprising a series of original, fine prints, painstakingly produced by Adams in his darkroom (or, in later years, by an assistant under his direction), portfolios became Adams’s preferred means of distributing his pictures.   

They were also crystallizations of his artistic vision. Critics view his portfolios as intimate expressions of his work. Adams intended for them to be viewed slowly and close up.   

 Most of the 25 photographs from this 1929 portfolio were taken during the Sierra Club’s annual “outing”—a month-long trip in the mountains surrounding Yosemite. One year earlier, Adams had been appointed the trip’s official photographer. In many ways, the portfolio resembles the personal experiences of a hiking trip, showing scenes in camp, along the trail, and from an ascended mountain peak.   

 The portfolio shows two contradictory formal and stylistic impulses: bold shapes and clean lines celebrate a modernist sensibility; while the matte, slightly textured paper gives the pictures an almost hazy appearance.  Adams’s best-known work from this period was the 1927 masterpiece Monolith, the Face of Half Dome.

Ansel Adams first visited Yosemite in 1916 and, as he often said, the encounter changed his life. “I knew my destiny,” he wrote many years later “when I first experienced Yosemite.” The place became his spiritual, social, and economic center. 

 Like many middle-class Americans, the 14-year-old Adams brought a camera on that momentous 1916 trip: a Kodak Brownie, his first camera. The pictures he made—snapshots intended to serve as mementos of a family vacation—might not be considered art, but they reminded him of a location that became central to his professional and personal life.  

 Over the years, Adams developed a deep sense of place with Yosemite that became the foundation for his photographic work. The high mountain peaks, wildly rushing waterfalls, and changing atmospheric conditions became the source material for a new way of making environmental visualizations: landscapes of pictorial patterns, shapes, and gradations of tone that evoked Adams’s own deeply personal affiliation with the place. 

“I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite.”   

While Yosemite remained important throughout his career, Adams also photographed landscapes beyond the iconic California national park. Travels throughout the American West provided opportunities to expand his photographic subjects. By the early 1940s, with the benefit of these new experiences, his visual approach changed considerably, becoming what is now recognized as his mature style.   

 In this new approach, Adams departed from the warm, intimate look of his 1929 portfolio, creating instead a more dramatic visualization of the environment. A sense of awe and astonishment became signature qualities of his photographs. He was drawn to environments that showcased weather patterns like theatrical clouds and snowstorms; to landforms that emphasized intense effects of light and dark; and to waterways and forests that, in very different ways, contained a dynamism and a sense of energy.   

 For Adams, focusing on the pristine quality of the environment kept the impact of people on the natural world at a distance. This was quite intentional. In his photographs, Adams transformed what he saw into what he hoped would be an inspirational work of art. “A great photograph,” he noted, “is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.” What Adams felt was an intense, almost mystical, experience of being in the natural world.  

“Response to natural beauty is one of the foundations of the environmental movement.”  

Adams’s environmental visualizations exemplify the photographic practices of two centuries. On one hand, he mastered the techniques and equipment of nineteenth-century photography, with its frequent use of large-format cameras and the creation of individual prints for public distribution. At the same time, he became an articulate twentieth-century spokesman for photography to be treated as a fine art.   

 Adams’s belief in the power of photographic visualization to inspire reverence for the natural environment set him apart from most of his nineteenth-century precursors.  Many of their photographs, by contrast, focused on presenting topographical or commercial views of the landscapes. These included photographs for U.S. government surveys, for railway companies, and for individual and corporate businesses.  

 Others, especially those connected to Camera Work (1903—1917), presented photography as a fine art, but from different aesthetic perspectives. These perspectives emphasized soft-focus, heavily manipulated images—a style that Adams came to reject in favor of sharp focus and detail. The seeds for Adams’s legacy were planted in these nineteenth- and early twentieth-century photographs.  

“. . . it is through the eye that we acquire most of our knowledge and these pictures help the eye very much.”  

In May 2024, the U.S. Postal Service commemorated Ansel Adams’s work with the release of 16 Forever stamps featuring his photographs. This is only the latest testament to his impact on American visual culture. But his immeasurable influence on both the photographic and environmentalist worlds began early—and did not go unchallenged.  

 For many contemporary photographers, Adams’s legacy represents both a debt and burden. Mark Klett describes how Adams helped raise environmental consciousness and prove that photography could be a powerful medium for that project. By removing evidence of the human impact on the earth, however, Adams presented a romanticized vision of a lost world. “The reality of place,” Klett says, “is quite different” from what one sees in an Ansel Adams photograph.  

 Visualizing the environment in ways that represent myriad realities has become a hallmark of photography in recent decades. These photographs take on many forms and address a range of topics, including destruction and degradation, the connection of home to place, historical memory, and aesthetic beauty. In nearly every case, rather than separating cultures from the environment, contemporary environmental visualizations explore their connection.  

“The landscape is not so much a paradise to long for (some say a paradise lost) as it is a mirror that reflects our own cultural image.”  

In the Foreword to his final portfolio of 1976, Ansel Adams said that he hoped his “work will encourage self-expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us.” We encourage you—with a view camera or DSLR, or with a mobile phone—to consider how you visualize the environment.  

"Visualizing the Environment: Ansel Adams and His Legacy," an exhibition opening August 31, 2024 at the Harry Ransom Center Museum and Library at the University of Texas at Austin, features thirty of Adams’s iconic photographs alongside works by his predecessors and the artists he inspired. This exhibition not only celebrates Adams’s profound impact on environmental imagery and artistic practice but also explores contemporary themes such as environmental change and human impact on nature. Dr. Steven D. Hoelscher, Faculty Curator of Photography, Harry Ransom Center, and Stiles Professor of American Studies and Geography, who has served as faculty curator for this exhibition, highlights Adams’s unique approach to capturing the essence of the natural world and its ongoing influence on modern photographers. The exhibition will be on view through February 2, 2025, and is sponsored in partnership with the Still Water Foundation.

With nearly 1 million books, over 42 million manuscripts, 5 million photographs, and 100,000 works of art, the Harry Ransom Center's holdings, like the works featured here, illuminate the creative processes of some of the world's finest artists. Exhibitions like Visualizing the Environment: Ansel Adams and His Legacy, help support the Center’s mission to deepen the understanding and appreciation of literature, photography, film, art, and the performing arts.

Accompanying nine photographs by Ansel Adams, we have included audio recordings derived from his 1983 book, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs. In writing these texts. Adams strove “for accuracy in the descriptions of equipment and procedures” and included reflections “of the environments and people involved.” Our selections were read by Dr. John St. Lawrence, have been edited for length, and are included with permission of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.

“I turned to the face of Half Dome. When we arrived about noon, it was in full shadow. In early mid-afternoon, while the sun was creeping upon it, I set up and composed my image. I was using a slightly wide-angle Tessar-formula lens of about 8 ½-inch focal length. I did not have much space to move about in: an abyss was on my left, rocks and brush on my right. […]  

I saw the photograph as a brooding form, with deep shadows and a distant sharp white peak against a dark sky. The only way I could represent this adequately was to use my deep red Wratten No. 29 filter, hoping it would produce the effect I visualized. […]  

Over the years I became increasingly aware of the importance of visualization. The ability to anticipate—to see in the mind’s eye, so to speak—the final print while viewing the subject makes it possible to apply the numerous controls of the craft in precise ways that contribute to achieving the desired result. […]  

I can still recall the excitement of seeing the visualization “come true” when I removed the plate from the fixing bath for examination. The desired values were all there in their beautiful negative interpretation. This was one of the most exciting moments of my photographic career.”

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“This serene subject is only about one hundred feet from the highway; I have passed it hundreds of times, and I retain many ‘corner of the eye’ memories of it at all times of the year. The shapes, even glimpsed from a moving car, were always beautiful, but the lighting conditions usually were impossible. On this morning, I observed a situation I could not resist; a glance was enough to command me to stop, park my car, and carry my equipment to the scene. My eye enjoyed a wonderful impression of light in all areas, but it was a very high contrast subject for the film, and I recognized this problem as I was setting up the camera. […]  

The picture was made just after sunrise, which at this spot is an hour or more after true sunrise because of the high surrounding cliffs. Fortunately, there was no wind; the required exposure was about 2/5 second at f/45, with a film of ASA 125 speed. With this shutter the slow speeds were a little fast. I set it at ½ second, and the fast-moving water was blurred, as expected. […] 

I am sure the image developed in my unconscious mind over time; on the morning the picture was made I recognized the desired image immediately. […]  

I am always visualizing image possibilities in the world around me, trying to relate shapes and values in whatever I see before me in terms of a format and image qualities the way the camera, not just the eye, ‘sees.’” 

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“I have always been moonstruck and have many moons in many pictures—but only one at a time! Practically all of my early moons were overexposed; some are just hopeless circles of white, and, if printed down, would be only discs of gray without texture. When I first received the S.E.I. Exposure Photometer, I found that its ½ deg. Field of view allowed me to measure closely the actual brightness of the moon; I determined that the luminance of the moon is approximately 250 c/ft^2, a value confirmed by the United States Naval Observatory. […] 

I happened to be driving in Yosemite Valley one winter afternoon about 3:30 and saw the moon rising to the left of Half Dome. The sky was clear and the late afternoon shadows were advancing on the 2000-foot cliff of the Dome. The picture shows the moon as gibbous, more than half full but not yet full. […] We must remember that the moon is behind the sky, and the sky value adds to the very consistent luminance of the moon. To separate the moon and the sky I used a strong orange filter, a Zeiss optically flat filter made for the Zeiss Hasselblad lenses. This filter reduced the value of the sky, allowing the moon to shine with conviction. […] 

There is always the chance that the best visualized remote images cannot be achieved; the optimum viewpoint may be physically inaccessible, and the view cluttered with unexpected and unmanageable foliage. One photographer, around 1870, trimmed all but the top branches of a fir tree so that a clear view of Yosemite Valley could be obtained. The effect was horrible, both in the photograph and in the landscape! I might remove a dead twig or a beer can from a field of view, but the original scene (excepting the beer can!) should be preserved for future observers. 

I have photographed Half Dome innumerable times, but it is never the same Half Dome, never the same light or the same mood.”

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“We were in the shadow of the mountains, the light was cool and quiet and no wind was stirring. […]  

In black-and-white photography, normal exposure and development would have produced a rather flat and gray image. I visualized the images as stronger, in accord with the mood of the hour and place. […]  

I felt that a deep yellow Wratten No. 15 (G) filter would be appropriate. I knew it would reduce the shaded ground values, thereby enhancing the general contrast of the subject (ambient light was mostly from the blue sky). Strong side lighting from banks of brilliant clouds on both left and right provided most favorable illumination of the nearly white tree trunks. […] 

The majority of viewers of the image think it was a sunlit scene. When I explain that it represented diffused lighting from the sky and also reflected light from distant clouds, some rejoin, ‘Then why does it look the way it does?’ Such questions remind me that many viewers expect a photograph to be the literal simulation of reality; of course, many others are capable of response to an image without concern for the physical realities of the subject. […]  

I believe that if I am able to express what I saw and felt, the image will contain qualities that may provide a basis for imaginative response by the viewer.” 

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“The making of this photograph . . . combined serendipity and immediate technical recall. I felt at the time that it was an exceptional image; there seems to be an almost prophetic sense of satisfaction when the shutter is released for certain exposures. 

We were sailing southward along the highway not far from Española when I glanced to the left and saw an extraordinary situation—an inevitable photograph! I almost ditched the car and rushed to set up my 8 x 10 camera. I was yelling to my companions to bring me things from the car as I struggled to change components on my Cooke Triple-Convertible lens. I had a clear visualization of the image I wanted, but when the Wratten No. 15 (G) filter and the film holder were in place, I could not find my Weston exposure meter! The situation was desperate: the low sun was trailing the edge of clouds in the west, and shadow would soon dim the white crosses. […]  

Realizing as I released the shutter that I had an unusual photograph which deserved a duplicate negative, I swiftly reversed the film holder, but as I pulled the darkside the sunlight passed from the white crosses; I was a few seconds too late! The lone negative suddenly became precious. […] 

The negative was quite difficult to print; several years later I decided to intensify the foreground to increase contrast. […] papers differ, toning sometimes gives unwanted density changes. It is safe to say that no two prints are precisely the same.”

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“I was traveling with friends between Durango and Ouray, on a trip through the San Juan Range, and found myself roving around Silverton with a camera. I saw no architecture of any importance compared to that of other old Western towns, but there seemed to be a special patina, enhanced by the high-altitude light and the static dignity of the place, that was irresistible. […] 

Why do I almost consistently avoid new construction? I do not photograph things simply because of their historic, architectural, or curiosity value. I also do not consciously relate the old homes and barns to the past humanity that conceived and built them. […]  

Why, then, do I seem to delight in old structures such as homes, barns, mining-town buildings, New England relics, long-past evidences of [people] in the American Southwest and in the very few places I have visited in France and England? It is not escapism for me. I can only say that I photograph what appears aesthetically beautiful and what I can visualize as a photograph worth creating, for myself and, I hope, for others.”

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“We observe few objects really closely. As we walk on the earth, we observe the external events at two or three arms’ lengths. If we . . . drive in an automobile, we are further reseparated from the immediate surround. We see and photograph ‘scenery;’ our vast world is inadequately described as the ‘landscape.’ The most intimate object perceived daily is usually the printed page. The small and commonplace are rarely explored. […]  

Most of my photographs made before 1930 were of distant grandeurs. But as I learned the inherent properties of camera, lens, filters and exposure, I also gained the freedom to see with more sensitive eyes the full landscape of our environment, a landscape that included scissors and thread, grains of sand, leaf details, the human face and a single rose.” 

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“One day when visiting Edward and Charis at their Carmel Highlands home, I expressed the desire to photograph him. I did not see any situation around his home that satisfied me, so I asked Charis if she knew of an appropriate area for a photograph of Edward. Always imaginative, she suggested a very large eucalyptus tree nearby. […]  

At first I was not satisfied with the location and I began to explore nearby. Edward sat down at the base of the tree to await my decision. A picket fence nearby offered a good possibility, and I walked back to the tree to get him. When a few yards from the tree I suddenly saw the inevitable image, a quick visualization of a very successful photograph. The relatively small figure at the base of the huge tree, the convoluted roots, and the beautiful quiet light—what more could I hope for? […] 

For me, this image is not only a reminder of a great artist and a warm and sympathetic friend, but holds much of the magical moment which not too many photographs contain. […]  

Immediacy is one aspect of photography; contemplation another. In Edward’s photographs of even his most static subjects I sense the immediacy of his perception and his highly developed aesthetic response.”

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“Weather, however spectacular to the eye, may present difficult conditions and compositions, especially when working with large cameras. Setting up the camera takes several minutes during which the first promising aspects of light and cloud may disappear. I would sometimes wait hopefully for the scene that I could visualize as an exciting image. It was occasionally realized, but […] I have found that keeping on the move is generally more rewarding. [...] 

Clearing Winter Storm came about on an early December day. The storm was first of heavy rain, which turned to snow and began to clear about noon. I drove to the place known as New Inspiration Point, which commands a marvelous vista of Yosemite Valley. […] Rapidly changing situations such as this one can create decision problems for the photographer. A moment of beauty is revealed and photographed; clouds, snow, or rain then obscure the scene, only to clear in a different way with another inviting prospect. There is no way to anticipate these occurrences.[…]  

As I cannot define in words the emotional or aesthetic qualities involved in the making of any photograph, the reader is obliged to refer to the image itself. Visualization relates to the final image, not to words used in attempts to describe it. 

 […] A negative properly exposed and developed in relation to the subject-luminance scale contains essential information for printing; I think of the negative as the ‘score’ and the print as the ‘performance’ of that score, which conveys the emotional and aesthetic ideas of the photographer at the time of making the exposure. 

Although this photograph is often seen as an environmental statement, I do not recall that I ever intentionally made a photograph for environmentally significant purposes. My photographs that are considered to relate to these issues are images conceived for their intrinsic aesthetic and emotional qualities, whatever these may be.”  

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