Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico Possibly 1941 - 1980

Ansel Adams made this gelatin silver print, *Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico,* with a camera and film, of course. It’s a landscape, but mostly it’s a skyscape, full of dramatic darks and lights. The tonal range in photography is so different from painting, but I think the best photographers are like painters, always thinking about the contrasts between one area and another. Adams uses it to stage everything in the picture plane. The surface is so smooth and still, like a mirror. At first it’s hard to see everything that’s going on. It’s a real testament to the power of grayscale, you know? It’s also interesting how he crops the frame, and what that implies about the rest of the world, outside of the image. Like Caspar David Friedrich. It makes me think about this constant conversation between art and life, which is never resolved. There’s always something open, some interpretation possible, some new feeling to be found.