Ansel Adams In Color

Renowned as America's pre-eminent black-and-white landscape photographer, Ansel Adams began to photograph in color soon after Kodachrome film was invented in the mid 1930s. He made nearly 3,500 color photographs, a small fraction of which were published for the first time in the 1993 edition of ANSEL ADAMS IN COLOR. In this newly revised and expanded edition, 20 unpublished photographs have been added. New digital scanning and printing technologies allow a more faithful representation of Adams's color photography.

A new book, Ansel Adams in Color, revised and expanded from the 1993 edition, [has] laser scans that might have met even his finicky standards. --Richard B. Woodward

This landmark book presents fifty majestic images by America's greatest landscape photographer - the first time that an important body of Ansel Adams' color work has ever been published. Ansel Adams began to photograph in color soon after Kodachrome was invented in the mid-1930s, and shot more than 3,000 color images during the course of his lifetime. Very few of these photographs, however, were published or exhibited. As Adams remarked late in his life after observing the advances in color printing techniques, "People are skeptical about my thoughts on color. I do not blame them, as I have protested it and have not shown my color pictures. I feel the urge now and I wish I were sixty years younger!" The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, working with the distinguished photographer Harry Callahan, has at last agreed to publish the best of Adams' color work. The result is a major event in the history of photographic publishing - an eye-opening work that is certain to stimulate controversy and debate. The photographs presented here are vibrant yet subtle, suffused throughout with Adams' passionate love of the American landscape and marked by the technical mastery and distinctive vision that are the hallmarks of his black-and-white photography. Employing state-of-the-art color imaging and printing technology, Ansel Adams in Color faithfully reproduces dozens of unforgettable color photographs of the American wilderness and enables us to appreciate anew the grandeur and artistry of Adams' vision. These magnificent images, accompanied by an introductory essay by James Enyeart and a selection of Ansel Adams' thoughtful, often contradictory writings on color photography, add a fascinating newdimension to Adams' enduring legacy.

In a career that spanned six decades, Ansel Adams was at once America's foremost landscape photographer and one of its most ardent environmentalists. His work has been published in a multitude of books, posters, and calendars.

Andrea G. Stillman, who worked with Adams in the 1970s, has edited several books of his photographs and writings, including Letters and Images: 1916-1984, Our National Parks, and Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs. She lives in New York City.

John P. Schaefer was a student, collaborator, and close friend of Ansel Adams, and is currently the president of Research Corporation and a Trustee of The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. In 1975, as president of the University of Arizona, he helped found the Center for Creative Photography. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.