ANSEL ADAMS (1902–1984)

'While living in Yosemite, I had great opportunity to follow the light and storms, hoping always to encounter exciting situations. There were hundreds of spectacular weather events over the years, but the opportunities to photograph them were limited to accidents of time and place.Clearing Winter Storm came about on an early December day. The storm was first of heavy rain, which turned to snow and began to clear about noon. I drove to a place called Inspiration Point, which commands a marvelous vista of Yosemite Valley. Rapidly changing conditions such as this one can create decision problems for the photographer. A moment of beauty is revealed and photographed; clouds, snow or rain then obscure the scene, only to clear in a different way with another inviting prospect' (Ansel Adams, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs, Little, Brown and Co., New York, 1989, p. 103).