ANSEL ADAMS
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico 1941
carmel highlands, california, 5.84

“I observed a fantastic scene as we approached the village of Hernandez,” wrote Ansel Adams in his autobiography. “I steered the station wagon into the deep shoulder along the road and jumped out…yelling [at my companions], ‘Get this! Get that, for God’s sake! We don’t have much time!’ ”

“After the first exposure I quickly reversed the 8 x 10 film holder to make a duplicate negative…but as I pulled out the slide the sunlight left the crosses and the magical moment was gone forever.” It was October 31, 1941, just after four p.m.—Halloween. Adams had his treat. “I knew it was special when I released the shutter,” he said.

“During my first years of printing the Moonrise negative, I allowed some random clouds in the upper sky area to show, although I had visualized the sky in very deep values and almost cloudless,” he added.

Shortly after Adams’ death in 1984, his widow Virginia posed with the negative on a light box ( far left) along with the cloudy and relatively cloudless prints made from it.