Ansel Adams Read Online Free PDF

unfindable negative or reproduction print. Ever serene, Phyllis would tackle impossible piles of SEPs or Museum Sets with the patience of Job, sitting for hours each day on a stool placed in front of an easel propped on the gray worktable, spotting photograph after photograph.
    As careful and fastidious as Ansel was, he could not change the fact that all negatives attract dust and are easily scratched, small imperfections that usually find their way onto the finished print as tiny white spots. Like other spotters, Phyllis had a variety of permanent inks that she carefully diluted and used to cover over, or “spot,” the white dots (or the “LP” in Winter Sunrise ) so they would match the surrounding area. On rare occasions, she might also etch out a black scratch with a very sharp blade and then spot the space. She was absolutely the best at what she did, and fast!
    Miscellaneous projects were forever popping up, but some of these were less taxing than others. In 1980, Little, Brown’s sister company Time-Life Books (both were owned by Time Inc.) requested that Ansel authorize the mail-order sale of twenty thousand autographed copies of Yosemite and the Range of Light. The initial plan called for him to actually sign each copy himself, but we quickly discovered that there was no way we could physically cope, either personnel-wise or space-wise, with so many large books. Ansel spent the better part of his non-darkroom time for two months signing labels that would then be stuck onto the appropriate page. Since he preferred working at every moment, even when he was “flu’ed up” in bed, Ansel adored this do-anywhere assignment.
    For the first few months I got along just fine with the trustees, my reputation as an “uppity” woman having somehow not preceded me. I do not think it began intentionally, but over time, things seemed naturally to evolve to a point where Bill was invariably on one side of an issue and I was on the other, with Ansel in the middle. As I saw it, Bill was urging Ansel to agree to a number of potentially lucrative projects not unlike the Museum Sets, which seemed to have little else to recommend them besides profit; Ansel really did not need the money, and his time and energy were increasingly limited. But my questioning any one of Bill’s decisions did not endear me to him one whit.
    Then, too, Bill also made significant demands on Ansel’s time in his role as executive director of the Wilderness Society, insisting that he meet with influential members of Congress, give interviews, hold press conferences, and travel, all to a greater extent than Ansel wanted. Under such pressures, his old robust and sure strength was crumbling. Sometimes, in a small but urgent voice, Ansel would whisper to me, “Help!”
    It was at around this time that Bill booked Ansel on the PBS television show Crossfire . Ansel’s side of the discussion was taped in a San Francisco studio, while his inquisitors were recorded in the home studio in Washington. They could see him, but he could see nothing except the television camera in his face; with no one to react to directly, Ansel grew disoriented and struggled with the series of pointed questions piped in through his earpiece. As much as he wanted to accomplish good things on behalf of the cause, his weakening health, combined with his contracted photographic responsibilities, left him feeling beleaguered.
    Ansel did not give up all of his travels. He continued to insist on hovering over the presses during the first printing of each of his books, which meant encamping in San Francisco or southern California for a few weeks at a time. In 1981, Ansel and I went to Gardner Lithograph in Buena Park, California, for the printing of the new edition of The Portfolios of Ansel Adams. Since the battle to save Mineral King, Ansel had held all things Disney in contempt; he had never even set foot in Disneyland, though it was within shouting distance of the printing plant. I