SoCal

Getty Center

We took an end-of-winter trip out to Southern California again this year, to visit our oldest daughter & her family…. and to get away from an East Coast setting where the words “polar vortex” and “wintry mix” were heard all too frequently over recent weeks. California certainly didn’t disappoint – lots of sun & palm trees & springtime green, and a wonderful opportunity to relax and get some r&r. We hiked the nature preserve trails at Dana Point, and also took in an Ansel Adams exhibit at the Getty Center in LA. Adams’ nature photography is distinctive and instantly recognizable – but the exhibit also showed how his style changed over time, a difference readily evident when comparing images printed from the same negative decades apart. “Later in life he wanted to create images that were more impactful,” noted one of the museum’s curators, and the latter work was indeed darker, with more blacks and sharper contrasts. I have to admit that I found the earlier, softer images more appealing – but apparently Adams concluded in the final years of his life that subtlety no longer worked when addressing environmental matters.