Make the Time: Ansel Adams at the Wittliff Collections

Photographs by the American master photographer Ansel Adams currently are on view at the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University. These iconic images are from the outstanding collection of Lynn and Tom Meredith.

Adams is best known for his majestic photographs of nature for which he engaged a creative process he called visualization wherein the artist visualizes the final image before he takes the photograph. For example, Adams was driving along the highway in New Mexico during the autumn of 1958 when he came across a group of aspens with golden leaves and saw what he wanted. He photographed Aspens, Northern New Mexico, Horizontal Aspens using a deep yellow filter to brighten the leaves and he took care to ensure no areas of the sky were visible, which would have been too bright. The photograph also was carefully printed because the dark areas are so dark and the lights are very bright; both had to be just right in the final print in order to realize Adam’s vision.