'Ansel Adams in Yosemite Valley'

When one thinks of Ansel Adams, images of stunning black-and-white landscapes of the American West come to mind. To celebrate the Yosemite Grant Act of 1864, Peter Galassi, chief curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, selected over a hundred Ansel Adams photos for a new coffee-table book called, "Ansel Adams in Yosemite Valley: Celebrating the Park at 150."

This slide: El Capitan, Winter, 1948

The Yosemite Grant Act of 1864, signed by Abraham Lincoln, was the first piece of legislation in history to set aside public lands for the use of a country's citizens, paving the way for the establishment of national parks.

Ansel Adams first visited Yosemite in 1916, at the age of fourteen, and he returned each year throughout his long life. There, he fell in love with wilderness and the west and became the photographer we know him as today.

When Adams was fourteen, he read "In the Heart of the Sierras" by James Mason Hutchings, and he convinced his parents to take a vacation in Yosemite National Park. His parents gave him a Kodak Brownie camera for the trip, and Ansel’s interest in photography was born.

When he talked about the trip, Adams said, “the splendor of Yosemite burst upon us and it was glorious… One wonder after another descended upon us… There was light everywhere… A new era began for me.”

His work helped raise awareness of and interest in America’s national parks.

In the foreward to Adams' book, "Yosemite and the Range of Light," curator Galassi explained that "the photographs recreate, for me, moods, realities, and magical experiences, and they have been selected for those reasons, not for their physical description of the great western range."

Peter Galassi notes in this book that In Adams' Yosemite, "both rock and water are alive -- the twin elements of an epic without end."

“I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us.”—Ansel Adams

This photo by Cedric Wright shows Adams setting up for a shoot in Yosemite in 1935. Get the book here.