"El Capitan, Winter"
Yosemite National Park, California
gelatin silver print mounted on cardboard
portfoliostamp, titled and signed by Allan Ross on verso
Ansel Adams made this image before 1950 with an 8x10" view camera; the precise date is unknown. The looming darkness of the granite face contrasts dramatically with the brightness of the snow-clad trees on either side of the Merced River. Other photographs of this image have a reversed tonality, dark trees and shadows framing the brighter rock. On winter days, as the sun warms the frozen face of El Capitan, rocks often shower down from above as the ice holding them in place melts. After the thousand-foot fall explodes the rocks on impact filling the valley with booming echoes. During his career, he took many images of El Capitan's dramatic face, notably one of his first known photographs taken in 1916 on his first trip to Yosemite. Using a Kodak #1 Box Brownie, he offered an early hint at the visualization that would later become his hallmark, framing the pale granite face with leafy trees in the foreground to downplay the overwhelming size of El Capitan. After that early photograph, Ansel Adams returned to El Capitan over and again photographing it in every time, season, and light he could. This particular image of El Capitan has not been published.
(Ansel Adams Gallery)