It's a photograph that says as much about our fit on this earth as it does about the landscape of the planet itself. No details are lost, either in the highlights or in the shadows. A thin, metaphorical layer of clouds divides the sleeping village below from the moon above, rising in the blackness of a looming universe. In the foreground of the tumbleweed-swept town lies a graveyard.
Tiny crosses remain lit in the waning skylight.
It's a reflection that, at once, speaks to our insignificance and our survival. The canvas on which Adams chose to express his wanderlust amid the Sierra Nevada Mountains holds a particular interest for me. Nearly 30 years ago, I taught photography at a community college in the North Carolina mountains. To my way of thinking, then and now, Adams is the quintessential photographer. His manipulation of light and film reveals an image as spiritual as it is visual.