Truth, however, is not necessarily joined to accurate depiction, but rather to truthfulness of experience. Adams stated: “To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces.” The moment of making a photograph is a juncture of mind and matter, intention and serendipity, past know-how and present surprise. Adams was tasked by the United States government with making mural-sized images portraying the natural beauty of the American West. The face of the Tetons was a destination, but the countenance of The Tetons and the Snake River was elicited by a pliant will engaged in attention and awe.

Adams became an energetic advocate of straight photography as opposed to Pictorialism, which had been the dominant movement from 1885 and well into the 20^th century. Pictorialism imitated the painterly handling of pigment, translated these material qualities into soft, blurred focus and extensive darkroom manipulations, privileging the artist’s interventions through chemical processes. The advent of straight or “pure” photography marked photography’s maturation into a self-regard for its own technical visual language.

The documentary style indulged a flair for drama. The notion of the “decisive moment” defined much of the straight photography of the mid-20th century. As French humanist photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson stated “we work in unison with movement as though it were a presentiment on the way in which life itself unfolds. But inside movement there is one moment in which the elements in motion are in balance.” This is the allure of candid photography: finding the peaks of genuine expression amid the unfolding of life. In Tetons and Snake River, Adams is not picturing a still scene. As if in demure defiance of the stalwart Tetons, the river rustles, the clouds glide across the sky, the light filters through responsively. The light sunbursts from behind the mountains as the sun set and Adams snapped the shutter closed. This image is a document of passage.

By the time he arrived in Jackson Hole in 1942, Adams had already shot what became one of his most famous photographs, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941). The images were a veritable highlight-reel of National Parks and other notable landscapes in America and were destined as mural for state interiors, namely the halls of the U.S. Department of Interior. Adam’s project followed on the heels of the state-sponsored campaign to introduce America to Americans, forging empathetic ties between citizens and their Depression-mired country. Ansel Adams fortifies the human spirit through tactical romance and reminder of natural splendor. His photography, in its very documentary nature, finds affinity with preservation. As a conservationist working to inspire dedication, Adams syncopated beauty with record and gifted Americans with portraits of America for posterity.