I post a lot of pictures on the internet, and occasionally, someone will say something nice about one of them. Any photo of mine that is worthy of a compliment is invariably the result of me accidentally being in the right place at the right time. Just like Ansel Adams — except for the “accidentally” part. The remarkable landscape photos that Adams became famous for were almost always the result of significant study to determine just what the right spot and right time were and usually some significant effort in getting there. The Discovering Ansel Adams exhibit contains plenty of those famous landscapes along with many of his lesser-known works.

The exhibit begins with items from the not-yet-famous part of his life. In addition to family snapshots and letters, one display contains a compass and some light meters used in the complementary “getting there” and “getting the shot” aspects of Adams’ work. The leftmost picture on the wall is the earliest landscape photo by Adams in the exhibit and probably the only one that is fairly well known with the word “inadvertently” in a description from Adams himself. Taken on his very first visit to Yosemite with his parents, the photo and description are here.

Black and white photos from large format cameras are most commonly associated with Adams and those make up the bulk of the exhibit. Many, but not all, are of various national parks. A couple of photos are accompanied by display cases holding backlit negatives and associated laboratory notes.

To support his fine art tendencies, Adams did a fair amount of commercial work including some in color. He even took pictures of people now and then and sometimes used small handheld cameras instead of bulky tripod-supported boxes. Sometimes, he even took pictures for his own enjoyment. Several things we don’t normally associate with Ansel Adams are associated with this photo of Georgia O’Keeffe and Orville Cox, described here, that shows the same crisp detail seen in his large-format people-less landscape work.

Copies of several of the books that Adams authored or contributed to are available to leaf through as part of the exhibit. I spent some time in one of those padded chairs reading bits from The Camera. The exhibit runs through January 19, 2025.

I also took in CAMaraderie: Artists of the Cincinnati Art Museum while I was at the museum. This impressive exhibit is comprised of numerous works of art from members of the museum staff. It runs through January 5, 2025.