BOOKSHELF

BOOKSHELF ANSEL ADAMS: AN AUTOBIOG-

BIOGRAPHY. By Ansel Adams with Mary Street Alinder. New York Graphic Society/Little Brown and Company, 205 Lexington Avenue, New York, New York 10016. 1985. 416 pages. $50.00, hardcover.

Just one month before his death at age 82, America's premier photog rapher, Ansel Adams, completed his autobiography. To his friend and executive assistant, Mary Alinder, fell the tasks of final editing and selection of photographs to accom pany the text. As with all of Adams' creative endeavors, the publication is an artistic summit, a monumental remembrance of an artist.

Many autobiographies are suspect. By their very nature, they oftenforfeit objectivity and reflect the individual in an imperfect mirror, tinted and not quite clear. Such is not the case with Ansel Adams. Photography, more than any other art form, tells the truth, and Adams, first and foremost a photog rapher, brought honesty to his text with the intense devo tion of a theologian. His search for direction, the failures and disappointments of early life are candidly dis cussed. His boyhood was marred by the business inept ness of his father; but Adams suggests that his father's greatest gift was his love of the outdoors and the time he took to instill it in his son.

forfeit objectivity and reflect the individual in an imperfect mirror, tinted and not quite clear. Such is not the case with Ansel Adams. Photography, more than any other art form, tells the truth, and Adams, first and foremost a photog rapher, brought honesty to his text with the intense devo tion of a theologian. His search for direction, the failures and disappointments of early life are candidly dis cussed. His boyhood was marred by the business inept ness of his father; but Adams suggests that his father's greatest gift was his love of the outdoors and the time he took to instill it in his son.

Adams began his training as a pianist at an early age and advanced rapidly toward the goal of the concert stage. The two major factors that altered his direction were a Brownie camera and Yosemite National Park. At a time when photography was more a curiosity than an art form, Ansel Adams saw the unbounded potential of the camera.

When Adams made his decision to abandon music as a career in favor of photography, his mother pleaded, "Do not give up the piano! The camera cannot express the human soul!"

Ansel replied, "Perhaps the camera cannot, but the pho tographer can."

The photographs within this volume prove him correct. It is apparent that a fine lens focused on delicate lichen growing on an ancient boulder can provide harmonies as inspiring as the eighty-eight ivory keys of a piano.

Adams' writing has much of the quality of his photog raphy. Warm, intimate, lambent, it relates the essential story of his life not in some predic table and chronological form but rather in an extended anecdotal style, unencumbered by a strict progressive pattern. Distinguished by its vigor and clarity, it is a joy to read. As his life was gratefully shared by others, so is his biography. He writes of his beloved wife, Virginia, and of Edward Weston, Georgia O'Keeffe, Diego Rivera, Robinson Jeffers, and others.

ANSEL ADAMS

Adams tells of brushing shoulders with several Presidents, from Frank lin Delano Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. On one visit to the White House during the Ford administra tion, he was conducted through the family quarters and noticed the President's old football helmet, worn when he played for the University of Michigan.

"Go ahead, Ansel, try it on," the President urged.

"No, no" Adams replied. "You can't wear another man's crown."

On numerous occasions, the deep concerns of Ansel Adams regarding America's national parks and diminish ing wilderness were forcefully expressed to the President in residence. During the Carter administration, his artistry and contributions to the environmental cause were rec ognized by the award of the Medal of Freedom.

The soul of this book may well be the 277 black and white photographs that blend with the text and vividly declare much about the man who made them. Like the mountains he loved, the book is a landmark for genera tions to come.

Both Adams' life and art were centered in the American West, though he was no stranger to the far corners of the country. The light and color of the Southwest always brought him back to its deserts and highlands. At his direction, the master prints of his images and a great deal of biographical material repose in the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

In April, 1985, on the first anniversary of his death, a magnificent mountain in Yosemite National Park was given the name Mount Ansel Adams. This thoughtful ges ture was, of course, a tribute to the man. But after reading Ansel Adams, An Autobiography, you will be convinced, as I was, that the mountain was as much honored as the man.

ARIZONA OUTDOOR GUIDE.

By Ernest E. Snyder. Golden West Publishers, 4113 North Longview Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85014. 1985. 126 pages. $5.00, softcover, plus $1.00 postage.

For a quarter of a century, Dr. Ernest E. Snyder, a former science professor at Arizona State University, has guided thousands of students on field trips, intro ducing them to the flora and fauna of every biotic community in Arizona. In this, his most recent book, he has compiled basic yet imperative information for those who venture into the state's great outdoors.

Lush microenvironments, such as this one in the Miller Peak Wilderness of southeastern Arizona, are home to a great variety of creatures great and small-underscoring the need for protection of our remaining wild lands. JACK DYKINGA