ANSEL ADAMS (1902-1984) Spires of St. Peter and Paul Church, San Francisco. Silver print, the image measuring 8 1/2x6 1/2 inches (21.6x16.5 cm.), the mount 10x8 inches (25.4x20.3 cm.), with Adams' Yosemite National Park stamp (BMFA 3) and reproduction notations in ink on mount recto and additional notations in pencil on mount verso. Circa 1940s; printed before 1948
Adams' commentary on this image in his book The Negative offers a poetic and practical glimpse into his skill as a practitioner and vision as a photographer: "The gilt crosses were blazing with the glare of sunlight. The stone of the church was fairly light, but if rendered 'literally' it would have competed with the crosses. Hence I exposed to keep the stone a middle value, and the foliage is thus quite dark. The sky was a deep blue and adequately separated in value from the stone. I made a second negative at one-half the exposure, but lost qualities in the shadows and in the foliage while gaining nothing with the values of the stone and cross. (The sky was deeper, but the effect was excessively theatrical.) With both negatives, the below-normal exposure had no effect on the glare from the crosses since that was far beyond the normal exposure scale of the film."
Ansel Adams, The Negative, The Ansel Adams Photography Series 2 (Morgan and Lester, 1948), p. 38
