About this photograph:

“At dawn, on a chill April 17 in 1927, my fiancée, Virginia, two friends (Charlie Michael and Arnold Williams), and I drove from our home to HAppy Isles and began an eventful day of climbing and photographing. I had my 6½ × 8½ Korona View camera, with two lenses, two filters, a rather heavy wooden tripod, and twelve Wratten Panchromatic glass plates. Those were the days when I could climb thousands of feet with a heavy pack and think nothing of it; I was twenty-five and weighed about 125 pounds. Virginia and friends were fine climbers in those pre-roping times, and nothing daunted us.

[…] This photograph represents my first conscious visualization; in my mind’s eye I saw (with reasonable completeness) the final image as made with the red filter. I knew little of “controls.” My exposures were based on experience, and I followed the usual basic information on lenses, filter factors, and development times. The red filter did what I expected it to do. […] I can still recall the excitement of seeing the visualization “come true” when I removed the plate from the fixing bath for examination. The desired values were all there in their beautiful negative interpretation. This was one of the most exciting moments of my photographic career.”

Quoted from the book Examples. The Making of 40 Photographs, Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1983, p. 3-5

About the year 1927 in Adams’ life:

“Nineteen twenty seven was the pivotal year of Adams’s life. He made his first fully visualized photograph, Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, and took his first High Trip. More important, he came under the influence of Albert M. Bender, a San Francisco insurance magnate and patron of arts and artists. Literally the day after they met, Bender set in motion the preparation and publication of Adams’ first portfolio, Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras [sic]. Bender’s friendship, encouragement, and tactful financial support changed Adams’s life dramatically. His creative energies and abilities as a photographer blossomed, and he began to have the confidence and wherewithal to pursue his dreams.” (more)

Learn more about the Half Dome and Ansel Adams (Wikipedia).

Tata Vislevskaya is a young director and screenwriter currently living in Moscow. Explore her photostream over at Flickr.

This photo is part of the Gottscho-Schleisner Collection hosted by The Library of Congress (perm. link). The collection can be searched by keywords and by subjects.

Overview of the collection: “The Gottscho-Schleisner Collection is comprised of over 29,000 images primarily of architectural subjects, including interiors and exteriors of homes, stores, offices, factories, historic buildings, and other structures. Subjects are concentrated chiefly in the northeastern United States, especially the New York City area, and Florida. Included are the homes of notable Americans, such as Raymond Loewy, and of several U.S. presidents, as well as color images of the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair. Many of the photographs were commissioned by architects, designers, owners and architectural publications, and document important achievements in American 20th-century architecture and interior design.”

More about Samuel H. Gottscho: “The Gottscho-Schleisner collection is the work of two architectural photographers, Samuel H. Gottscho [1875 - 1971] and William H Schleisner [1912 - 1962]. Samuel Gottscho acquired his first camera in 1896. From 1896 to 1920 he photographed part time specializing in houses and gardens as he particularly enjoyed nature, country scenes and landscapes.” (read more). Learn more on Wikipedia.

Previously on Skandalon.

Artist’s statement: “My work mirrors individuals’ private moments of introspection. I find myself compelled to capture the moments when a strong desire and need to feel comfortable in one’s own skin are present. Similarly, I want to capture a person’s attempt at reconnecting or discovering some form of greater magic (conventionally speaking, God) and the candid instant when a person reveals how far he or she feels from that magic.

In my most recent series, I explore the pervasive influence of commercialism on an individual’s psychology. To elicit a reaction beyond the status quo, I chose to implement advertising trends that will potentially appear in the near future. This work which features various corporate logos, was not intentionally created for a company’s commercial purposes, but instead to permit mutual exploitation by allowing the display of the company’s logo on my paintings. The aim of the series is to prompt reflection and introspection by the viewer of the psychological violations and absurdness of most advertising.” (Robert Standish biography). His official website.