More About the Image:
Ansel Adams made this image in 1962 in the Owens Valley, or what author Mary Austin called, the Land of Little Rain. The landscape is often parched but can be punctuated by periodic torrential storms. Here, Ansel has found a scene that illustrates Austin’s epithet. The reflecting pool, perhaps the result of recent rain, already appears to be evaporating. Receding from its high-water marks around its edges, the reemerging sodden landscape in the immediate foreground alerts us to its shallow depth. The middle ground shows as an almost texture-less hill scrubbed of most flora save the hardy, aromatic sage; there is a ruggedness at play here. The whimsical cirrus clouds above do not promise new moisture, leaving the ephemeral water to seem melancholic in the quiet evening, its placid surface the more poignant. The scene is one to appreciate now, in the present, for it will not last; a sincere metaphor for life. Ansel would include this image in his Portfolio 4 about which he wrote, ‘In some [images], the essences of light and space dominate [. . .] and the luminous insistence of growing things. Shape of nature, transformed into what the artist calls forms by the controlled eye and perceptive spirit, are presented here as the equivalents of experience.’ (P pg. undesignated)
