More About the Image:
Glacier Point was one Ansel Adams’ favorite vistas of the High Sierra. He would frequently take guests up to the point at predawn to witness the revealing sunrise over the Range of Light – to borrow John Muir’s designation. From here, the great gesture of the Sierra, its gesticulating peaks and domes unfurled to infinity, invites adventure. Made at the antithesis of the day, Ansel’s Moonrise from Glacier Point is a bookend to these legendary morning sojourns. The mood is much more somber here as the day is now destined for memory and photographs, while the specter moon evokes a synesthesia of an earnest, attenuating orchestration.
Ansel Adams made this image with an 8″ x 10″ view camera sometime before 1959. The specific date is unknown, but astronomers at Texas State University in San Marcos dated a similar image, “Autumn Moon,” to 7:03 PM September 15, 1948.
