Ansel

Ansel Adams looked at my portfolio when I visited him in 1973 at Yosemite.  He didn’t like my work very much — too contrasty, lacking detail — but he was very kind and generous and even allowed me to work in his darkroom.  I then took some of the very kind of photographs he criticized — during that period, I was deliberately resisting technical craft: prefocusing a semi-wide lens, quickly guessing at exposures with my meterless Nikon F, pulling images out of Tri-X negatives shot in “impossible” light, etc. — including these moments as he reviewed portfolios and autographed prints.