Landscapes of the American West

Ansel Adams's legendary photographs inspire an appreciation for natural beauty and conservation that has been communicated down the generations. His ambition was not simply to record the landscape, but to capture his emotional and spiritual response to the wild areas that he loved so deeply. The results are spectacular: an emotional charge and passion shine through the prints with an intensity that is as powerful today as it was more than 60 years ago. In 1941, Adams was commissioned by the United States Interior Department to take photographs of the National Parks to be printed as murals for the walls of the new Interior Department building. This couldn't have been closer to his heart: it combined a commercial assignment with his personal, creative work. Unfortunately, the project was curtailed with the outbreak of World War II and the mural was never produced. The majority of pictures in this book are from the National Parks Mural Project, but also include work from other projects. The Kings Canyon photographs, taken in 1936, were successfully used to lobby for Kings Canyon to be designated a National Park. There is an exuberant photograph of an apple tree in snow taken at Yosemite, as well as the images taken for a documentary project during the war when Japanese Americans were interned at the Manzanar Relocation Center.