In the master’s footsteps

If I think landscape photography I think Ansel Adams.

In my early years studying photography his name was synonymous with photography. His work was in my dreams, in my study books that talked of pre visualisation, and the zone system that still today, influences how I process an image be it black and white or colour.

I even used to tell my students when I became a teacher, that he was so famous he even featured in a Simpsons episode. To me he is the master upon which we grade ourselves when it comes to the landscape and the images we make.

In 2022 we escaped the Melbourne winter after a couple of back to back years in Covid lockdown and headed to the states. Yosemite was nothing more than in my imagination until that trip. I’d flicked through Ansel’s images of this place hundreds of times in my formative years of photography, studying the nuances and the shapes, the incredible balance and the emotive landscapes. I’d often pictured him making his images with his enormous 8×10 camera and tripod and him standing on his roof of his car. I never thought I would actually ever get to see these places - that they would become a part of my life.

Instead of trying to replicate, imitate or even compare I instead took time to soak it in. It felt like a full circle moment. I took a few pics and they came out okay but it seemed that wasn’t the point.

Photography had bought me here, to this magical place. Ansel had bought me here all the way from Australia, the moment he made his iconic image of the Yosemite Valley in 1949. My photograph below tells tells me that story.

© Christian Pearson - Yosemite Valley