Ansel Adams
A Morgan & Morgan Monograph
Morgan & Morgan, Inc., 1972, 152 pages
ISBN 0-87100-030-X

Ansel Adams is renowned as one of the great masters of landscape photography. This monograph includes a number of his famous landscapes, but it also includes many more lesser-known photos in genres such as portraits, abstracts, and even a bit of photojournalism.

The photos are not organized by genre or in any other obvious way, except that older works tend to appear earlier in the book. I think this works well here, as it encourages the reader to evaluate each photo on its own merits, rather than as part of a larger set or collection.

For example, on one page you'll see a portrait of a Navaho woman. Turn the page and you get the famous Moonrise over Hernandez, and the page after that is an architectural study of an adobe church. It's completely fascinating.

This book makes it clear that landscapes were indeed Adams' strongest subject, but his other work is not bad. Some of his portraits are quite excellent. This book gave me a much better appreciation of Adams as a photographer.

Recommended.