Good Reads

So, thought I'd share what I'm reading lately. I spotted this book brand new for about $2.00 in a local thrift store (another one of my favorite haunts). Being as Ansel Adams is one of the artists I admire much, I snapped that up and brought it home! So far, a good read. My favorite passages at this time are in the beginning, when he describes his youth growing up in turn-of-the-19th-century San Fransisco, California. The images he paints in your mind's eye are vivid, especially for those of us who also grew up knowing California's coastlines, valleys, and mountain ranges. It is so cool to "see" through his words what Frisco pre-Golden Gate and developers' greed was like. His account of the family's experience of the Great Quake of 1904 is something else, too. All in all, I suppose I should expect a photographer who was so talented as Adams to also be equally able to create images with a pen.

Time and priorities tend to keep me from reading as much as I'd like, and I am not finished with this book yet, but it won't be long. I plan to do a series of posts about various photographers who inspire me, both living and gone, and Ansel Adams will of course be included. His ability to capture natural light in black and white, the subjects he chose, and the way his feelings for those subjects is conveyed in his images is full of great lessons and inspiration for me!