The late Ansel Adams lives on through his black and white photographs, and part of his legacy is being shared with Central Texas.
The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at UT is where some of Adams' work is exhibited.
"Ansel Adams: A Legacy" can be seen on Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended Thursday hours until 7 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays the galleries are open from noon to 5 p.m. The exhibition runs through Jan. 1.
News 8 Austin’s Paul Brown got a unique perspective on this exhibition from Adam's biographer Mary Street Alinder.
Q: You were with Mr. Adams from 1979 – 1984 as his biographer and personal assistant. What was it like to work so close with him?
A: I pinched myself every day for my good luck. My most-asked question is ‘how did you get to work for him?’ It was a confluence of lucky things that happened. I knew a lot about photography. I met Ansel in 1967 at a photography workshop. We got along famously well. My background was in English and editing, and I was hired in utter desperation in 1979 to make him write his autobiography because he’d written 40 books, delivered them all on deadline, and he was a year late with his autobiography and hadn’t written one word.
Q: Tell us about this photograph (pictured at right.)
A: This show at the Ransom Center is such a rich treasure trove of Ansel. A lot of people think of the grand landscapes – of Yosemite and mountains. But Ansel made some beautiful people pictures. Probably his most famous picture is [this one] of Georgia O’Keefe, the great American painter who hails from Texas originally, and Orville Cox, who was their travel guide in 1937 while traveling through the southwest with a group of people. Ansel was a close friend of Ms. O’Keefe’s – may I say as close as you can get to a porcupine. She was definitely a thorny individual and she always criticized Ansel because she thought he charged not enough money. [The photo] was 35mm; that was unusual for Ansel.
Q: You described this photo (pictured at top) as one of your favorites.
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Ansel Adams exhibit
Watch the complete interview with Mary Street Alinder.
 
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A: Ansel made it for me for my birthday, for a very special birthday. It was 1932, and Ansel lived next door to his mother and father. His mother had a great garden, and she brought him a perfect white rose. And he took the rose and set it on a piece of driftwood in front of the window, natural lighting, and took his 4x5 view camera, focused carefully, and made this exposure.
To me it’s quintessential straight photography. When you come to the exhibition you’re able to get right up close, and you can see that every part of this is in focus. There’s great depth of field, it has this incredible tonality – which means it has black blacks, white whites and every shade of grey in between.
