Ansel Adams in Color by Ansel Adams

Edited by Harry M. Callahan with John P. Schaefer and Andrea G. Stillman.

Toward the end of his life Ansel Adams wrote, "People are skeptical about my thoughts on color. I do not blame them, as I have protested it and have not shown color pictures. I feel the urge now and only wish I was sixty years younger!"

Adams began to photograph in color in the mid-1930s. He did significant personal or "creative" photography in color, and his distinctive visualization of a scene and technical mastery is immediately evident in his color photographs. Overall, he made nearly 3,500 color images, but only a small fraction have ever been published.

Adams thought seriously about publishing his color images, but the task was not accomplished during his lifetime. The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust--with advice and counsel from John Szarkowski, former Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art; David Travis, Curator of Photographs at the Art Institute of Chicago; and James Enyeart, former Director of the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House--asked the distinguished master photographer Harry Callahan to select the best of Adams' color work for publication in this book.

Accompanied by an introductory essay by Enyeart, and a selection of Adams' fascinating, often contradictory writings on color photography, these magnificent color images add a new dimension to Adams' enduring legacy.

My Review:
Thank you to Hachette Book Group for my copy of this wonderful book. Everyone's heard of Ansel Adams, America's foremost landscape photographer. In fact, whenever I spot a black and white landscape, I think of him. However, this eye-opening collection of spectacularly detailed color photographs expands my admiration of his work.

This volume is more than a collection of magnificent color photographs; in addition, it contains a comprehensive essay, "Quest for Color" by James L. Enyeart, photographic historian. The heavy volume concludes with "Selected Writings on Color Photography by Ansel Adams. This book would be a treasure for anyone interested in photography, art, and/or America. What a remarkable gift it would make!