Tom Adams, Ansel Adams' son, talks about his father's iconic Yosemite photographs shot from a bridge, including a winter image of Half Dome and the Merced River. The family ran a shop in the old village and spent months in the Sierra, Alaska, and Yellowstone. Tom remembers moonrise events that drew hundreds of photographers to Half Dome.
So what does this spot mean to you? Did Ansel make any interesting photos from this bridge?
He made a lot of photos. Actually, the picture from the bridge. In the winter, it's moon or it's a half dome. Merced river, winter and 39 was my mom's favorite picture. Yeah, she loved it. And that was taken right to the bridge. There's Tom. Part of that was because their first business, the first years that he had business, was right over here, 100 yards from where we are right now. This is the old village. Yeah. And that's where she started. Grew up in Yosemite. She would come every year with her parents.
So there's a whole bunch of buildings right here.
They're all gone now. The only thing left is a traffic. Did your mom go with him on a lot of his trips? A lot of the early ones. Then when the kids came along, she was. And when her father died, 36, she took on the responsibility of running the shop. Yeah. So she didn't have the freedom. Yeah. And then when I got old enough to go with these, I was the one that went away. How often did he go on trips during the years? I mean, half the time of the year in the 30s, every summer to, you know, with these Sierra Club trips into the back country of here. But he spent a lot of time here because he had his dark room here. Yeah. And he did a lot of work in the dark room. So he was here between here and San Francisco. And they maintained a house in San Francisco. They would rent it for a year or two and stay with their. With Anson's folks. Sure. But they always had a San Francisco connection. Yeah. And as they got older, they would spend summers here and the winters in San Francisco. And this became a place that just comes with the summer. Yeah. Yeah. And then they come back for Christmas and freezer. How long? Well, I went with him to Alaska that summer, and we were gone for about six or seven weeks because we did Alaska. And then we came back and we did a workshop in Yellowstone. And, you know, so that was in September. Most of the trips were probably three weeks. We drive. We drive down the southwest somewhere up to Yellowstone or something. They were three weeks, probably two.
Have you ever been here again when the moon's rising over the Half Dome?
Yes.
Because it's hard to time that, isn't it?
I know it is. And the astronomers came up with a date that moon over Half Dome was going to recur. And I didn't come up for it. My wife did. I got a picture of her out in the meadow holding up the original. And here it is, Half Dome with the moon. It's a great day. The newspapers are all over. All of the local papers are up here to take pictures of that event, the moon coming up. I don't know how often.
It's not often enough. I remember being here on the bridge in January. One year.
It will happen again.
Yeah, I remember being here when the moon came over Half Dome. Not the moon way it was pictured, but just over it. And there was 200 photographers out here. And it was freezing cold in January in the snow. There was a bank of snow here. We were all jockeying for position, trying to get it.
Interesting.
Building Yosemite.
Never stops, does it? Equipment. So let's go. Next one. See you.
