Surf Sequence 4, San Mateo County Coast, California Possibly 1940 - 1982

Ansel Adams made this photograph, Surf Sequence 4, somewhere along the coast of San Mateo County in California. I can almost feel the grit of the sand beneath my toes, the cold spray of the waves as they crash and recede. Adams, he was trying to capture not just the look, but the feel of this place, the energy of the ocean. It’s a dance of light and shadow, the foamy waves in a constant state of flux. Imagine him there, adjusting his lens, waiting for the perfect moment when the light hits just right, transforming water into something almost ethereal. Think about how Adams was part of a conversation with other artists, how their ideas bounced off one another. Maybe he saw something that Alfred Stieglitz did and thought, "I can do that with a camera." The history of photography, like painting, is full of such conversations – artists pushing each other, challenging each other to see the world in new ways. It reminds us that art is never made in isolation; it's a collective, ever-evolving process.