Frozen Lake and Cliffs

More About the Image:

Frozen Lake and Cliffs was made during a ‘transitional period’ for Ansel Adams, marking his greater shift away from pictorialism and into the Group f/64 philosophy.  John Szarkowski, the preeminent Curator at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, would even call this his most significant modernist image.  In 1932, Ansel was on a summer outing with the Sierra Club in the Kaweah region of the Sierra.  He came across this scene one day and ‘was impressed with the solemn beauty of the scene and saw the image in my mind quite clearly.’ (E pg. 11)  Ansel would also relate that ‘many speak of this image as abstract, but I was not conscious of any such definition at the time.  I prefer the term extract over abstract, since I cannot change the optical realities, only manage them.’ (E pg. 11)  The negative ultimately proved quite difficult to print, and according to Andrea Stillman ‘tested his skills’ in the darkroom.  A ‘hauntingly’ graphic image, it found its way into many of Ansel’s most important publications or collections, including Yosemite and The Range of Light, the posthumous exhibition and eponymous book, Ansel Adams at 100, and as the final plate in Sierra Nevada and The John Muir Trail.  (AA100)  The image was also included in Ansel's last major project called 'The Museum Set,' a collection of photographs for which he wanted to be remembered.  Sets were initially meant to include either 25 or 75 total images, 10 which Ansel picked as absolute and which he considered exemplary to his body of work (colloquially referred to as his 'biggies').  Of all the images considered for the set made throughout the entirety of his career, Frozen Lake and Cliffs was chosen as one of his ten 'biggies.'