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Lot Essay
We were sailing southward along the highway not far from Española when I glanced to the left and saw an extraordinary situation—an inevitable photograph. —Ansel Adams
Decades after the image was captured, Ansel Adams vividly recalled the circumstances surrounding this picture. 'Well, this was a tremendous sight to be seen, and I had to beg everybody in the car to help me to get everything out, to get the tripod. And the magnificent white mountains, clear day, church [with] a flat adobe roof, and the moon [that] was up about, oh, 30 degrees, several days before full. And there was a long line of clouds here, the sun was just running low behind them, putting the light on white crosses. I think it was one of the great scientists who said that ‘chance favors the prepared mind,’ and in this case I had to be sufficiently prepared to make this work. I instinctively felt I had quite the extraordinary image, and I think you know it.' It was a remarkable achievement in an otherwise disappointing day that had yielded little success along the Chama River valley on November 1st, during Adams' commission to photograph the Southwest by the U.S. department of the Interior and the U.S. Potash Company of New Mexico.
As one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, and arguably Adams’s most celebrated image, the print offered in the present lot embodies Adams’s aesthetic as well as the power of photography to capture the majestic quality of fleeting moments.
Decades after the image was captured, Ansel Adams vividly recalled the circumstances surrounding this picture. 'Well, this was a tremendous sight to be seen, and I had to beg everybody in the car to help me to get everything out, to get the tripod. And the magnificent white mountains, clear day, church [with] a flat adobe roof, and the moon [that] was up about, oh, 30 degrees, several days before full. And there was a long line of clouds here, the sun was just running low behind them, putting the light on white crosses. I think it was one of the great scientists who said that ‘chance favors the prepared mind,’ and in this case I had to be sufficiently prepared to make this work. I instinctively felt I had quite the extraordinary image, and I think you know it.' It was a remarkable achievement in an otherwise disappointing day that had yielded little success along the Chama River valley on November 1st, during Adams' commission to photograph the Southwest by the U.S. department of the Interior and the U.S. Potash Company of New Mexico.
As one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, and arguably Adams’s most celebrated image, the print offered in the present lot embodies Adams’s aesthetic as well as the power of photography to capture the majestic quality of fleeting moments.