Ansel Adams PosterLooking at my Ansel Adams poster, I am reminded of my last trip to the mountains. I'm not a mountain climber I have a serious muscular illness which prevents me from being able to properly exert my upper body strength.
I was raised in the Midwest, hundreds of miles from the nearest mountain range, and never saw them until my parents bought an Ansel Adams poster and put it up in the living room.
I was just completely overawed by the spectacular detail of the rocky crags in the Ansel Adams poster.
It was as if he didn't just capture the image of the mountain, but somehow brought back its soul as well. In that Ansel Adams poster was the image of a kinship with nature, the like of which I had never seen before.
It was as if the photographer knew the mountain personally, and had it pose in its most splendid pose just for him.
It is that same Ansel Adams poster which I now look at, as I remember my trip to the Rockies. Usually you say that a picture doesn't do it justice.
I don't think that in this case, that sentiment is exactly true.
The Ansel Adams poster is completely just with its subject matter. It is more that it doesn't give it completeness.
It isn't just the epic scale or fantastic beauty of the mountains, which can be captured by the Ansel Adams poster.
It is what they do to you as an observer.
They surround you, they tower over you, they overwhelm you in their multitudes and dizzy you with their scale. You can feel the icy air which has been propelled in frozen currents down their sides cut into your face.
You feel giddy in the thin air. Although the Ansel Adams poster captures the beauty of mountains, it never can capture their power over you.
But maybe Ansel Adams himself could feel this power, could give himself to it and be awed by the mountain.
Maybe that is where Ansel Adams posters get their impressive power, not from the familiarity which the photographer had with his subject matter, but rather his awe and humility before it.
Perhaps what makes Ansel Adams posters so great is that he never attempts to capture the experience of mountains in their entirety, knowing that that would be beyond anyone.
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