More About the Image:
This image was made circa 1942 while Ansel was completing his employment as a photo-muralist for the Department of the Interior. He wrote of Death Valley: ‘The experience is primarily one of light; heroic, sunlit desolation and sharp, intense shadows are the basic characteristics.’ (E pg. 57) His first visit to the area was in 1941, ‘encouraged [to visit] by [Edward] Weston’s photographs, and successive excursions convinced me of the areas grandeur and beauty.’ (AB pg. 207) In this image, Ansel has trained his camera on the unique sculptural geology of the mudstone badlands which highlights his vision of a ‘Dantean’ landscape and 'vast desert wildness [that] is unmatched in North American.’ (AB pg. 207). In 1945, Fortune Magazine would select some of Ansel’s Zabriskie work for publication in a portfolio titled ‘The Grandeur of Home’ and in 1950, this image was also included in Ansel’s Portfolio 2, called ‘The National Parks and Monuments.’ At the end of his life, Ansel communicated the significance of this image by making it one of the variants in his last major project, The Museum Set.
On four successive mornings Adams tried to take this photograph from the east side of the Sierra. On the fifth day it was still dark and bitterly cold when he set up his camera on the new platform on top of his car and retreated to the warm interior.
Manzanar, the site of one of the World War II relocation camps, is about fifteen miles north of Lone Pine. While I was photographing in and around the camp in 1943 and 1944 I made some of my best images.
