Item #1485 Basic Photo Series: Camera & Lens, (2) The Negative, (3) The Print, (4) Natural-Light Photography, (5) Artificial Light Photography. Ansel Adams.
Basic Photo Series: Camera & Lens, (2) The Negative, (3) The Print, (4) Natural-Light Photography, (5) Artificial Light Photography
Basic Photo Series: Camera & Lens, (2) The Negative, (3) The Print, (4) Natural-Light Photography, (5) Artificial Light Photography
Basic Photo Series: Camera & Lens, (2) The Negative, (3) The Print, (4) Natural-Light Photography, (5) Artificial Light Photography
Basic Photo Series: Camera & Lens, (2) The Negative, (3) The Print, (4) Natural-Light Photography, (5) Artificial Light Photography
Basic Photo Series: Camera & Lens, (2) The Negative, (3) The Print, (4) Natural-Light Photography, (5) Artificial Light Photography
Basic Photo Series: Camera & Lens, (2) The Negative, (3) The Print, (4) Natural-Light Photography, (5) Artificial Light Photography

Basic Photo Series: Camera & Lens, (2) The Negative, (3) The Print, (4) Natural-Light Photography, (5) Artificial Light Photography

"Photography, in the final analysis, can be reduced to a few simple principles…"
-Ansel Adams, from the Foreword


With the Basic Photo Series, Adams "became known to a lay audience of photographers as THE expert…" Alinder, Ansel Adams: A Biography

FIRST EDITIONS, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY ADAMS IN ALL FIVE VOLUMES: "For / --- / Ansel Adams / Carmel / 3-25-80". Profusely illustrated throughout.

“Adams’s return to teaching got him thinking about an expanded edition of his technical guide, Making a Photograph. He especially wanted to explain the principles and techniques of visualization and the zone system, as he had developed and refined these since the publication of the book in 1935. It soon became clear that the in-depth guide he had in mind would require several volumes. After securing an agreement with the photographic publishers Morgan and Lester, he began work on the first volume of what he would call the Basic Photo series. Always eager to play the evangelist, Adams hopes that his books would help to raise the level of quality among both amateur and professional photographers.

“Two years later, in 1948, he published Camera and Lens, which offered a detailed discussion of the characteristics and operation of a wide range of equipment, with a particular emphasis on the large-format view camera. He followed with The Negative later that year and The Print in 1950, laying out in exhaustive detail the principles of his zone system. No matter how involved his technical discussions, however, Adams always reminded his students that expression and communication were the ultimate goals of art” (Spaulding, Ansel Adams and the American Landscape).

Profusely illustrated with educational photographic examples and diagrams throughout.

Note: The series is complete in five volumes. The fifth volume mentions a sixth volume that is in preparation, but it was never completed.

New York: Morgan and Lester, 1948-1956. Octavo, original decorated cloth, original dust jackets. Advertisements and publishers' correspondence laid-in. Books near-fine; dust jackets very good with some edge-wear, mild spine fading, and three tape repairs. Extremely rare with all five volumes signed by Adams.

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