Stand Where Ansel Stood

"Tetons and the Snake River," Ansel Adams, 1942.

If you find you were intrigued but a tad uninspired by Ken Burns's new National Parks opus--it's great, really, but 12 hours is just too long--then perhaps the direct, visceral power of some Ansel Adams images is the remedy. Adams was commissioned by the National Parks Service in 1941 to undertake a series of photos for a mural at the Department of Interior building in DC. He visited more than a dozen national parks and monuments and the Parks Service ended up with 226 images in its archives, among them some iconic and well known ones (above), and some less known but equally arresting shots. You can browse them all here.

If the Adams browsing leaves you wanting to try your hand at capturing the same vistas--you know, imitation being the highest form of flattery and all--you might be interested in this piece from the September issue of Outside, which gives GPS coordinates pinpointing where Adams stood for three classic shots. I wrote the first draft about two years ago, as part of a National Parks package I was writing, but they shelved it at the time and only ressurected it while I was in Alaska this summer. Thus, I share the byline with Kyle Dickman, who graciously tracked down the remaining details. Following Ansel's tracks is a fun game, but be warned: results may vary, and unless you're standing on a platform on the roof of a chevy station wagon and shooting a large-format camera and are Ansel Adams, your photos will not look like this.

Further reading: The Adams piece was initially supposed to run as part of this guide to the uncrowded corners of eleven National Parks that I wrote in 2007.