Author: 1219tallgrass@gmail.com

Ansel Adams, a lifelong environmentalist considered by many to be the greatest landscape photographer of the 20th century, is known for his photographs of the American West, especially the Yosemite Valley. His first visit to Yosemite National Park occurred in 1916, when he was 14 years old, and he returned year after year from then on to photograph its beauty.

While Ansel Adams chose to capture the stunning scenery there, I instead focused on my children and still remember taking the shot that became our 1994 Christmas card photo. That image remains now, over two decades later, one of my favorite pictures of the kids.

Taken after a snowfall with sounds muted by the snow, there was a crispness and pureness to the setting. We were only there a short time but it was magical and all three kids were willing subjects behind the fallen tree. Then we returned to the hotel where laughter replaced silence while they made snowmen and threw snowballs at each other.

Yosemite Valley, 1994

Aaron Siskind was an influential 20th century American photographer whose first camera, like Julia Margaret Cameron’s, was a gift. Received as a honeymoon present, the camera accompanied Siskind and his new wife to Bermuda then, from there, led to Siskind’s lifelong artistic exploration of the world around him. In his words:

“Photography is more than a means of recording the obvious. It is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever, whether it be a face or a flower, a place or a thing, a day or a moment. … It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”

Images from June, 1978

Julia Margaret Cameron, the noted 19th century British photographer, received her first camera later in life as a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. Criticized by some contemporaries for careless craftsmanship, she purposely avoided perfect resolution and said what she thought,

“What is focus and who has the right to say what focus is the legitimate focus?”

The focus here is to explore images and ideas — family images boxed away for decades now seeing the light of day; and ideas brought forth from exposure to these long-ago images — with the intent to entertain, to amuse and delight, and to appreciate the past anew.

Disclaimer: While Julia Margaret Cameron intentionally blurred her images for art’s sake, that is not the case here. Whenever you see a blurry photograph on this blog, it is what I like to refer to as unintentional art.

Sea Ranch Family Vacation, 1999