Ansel and Me

Click the image above and read the sign.

And here is an image I made at that spot three weeks ago.

The Teton Range is there, you can almost see it through the smoke (from wildfires in Idaho and Washington). The trees seem to have grown in the 73 years since 1942. They now hide the bend in the Snake River. Or maybe I should have stood on the roof of my car like Ansel Adams. (It was a rental Toyota Camry, however. My Lexus SUV was having its radiator replaced after an incident with an elk two nights earlier in Yellowstone.)

One of the singular highlights of my archival career was the day 30-or-so years ago when I received unannounced in my inbox at the National Archives — where I directed the records appraisal program — the Official Personnel Folder (OPF) for one Adams, Ansel Easton. The file was due for routine disposal but a conscientious and alert staffer at the Office of Personnel Management thought that maybe Mr. Adams’s file was worth preserving. It was. (That same staffer also preserved Woodie Guthrie’s OPF.)

For reference, Adams’s famous photo.