Photographer Ansel Adams was a scenic photographer and conservationist whose black and white photographs captured American landscapes during the first half of the twentieth century. The United States' National Park Service commissioned Adams to take photos of several national parks to be used in a photo mural for Washington D.C.'s Interior Building. The project was cut short due to World II but the 226 black and white photos, each captioned and signed by Adams, were acquired by the National Archives Still Picture Branch.http://www.archives.gov/research/ansel-adams/ The images were captured at Yellowstone National Park, Yosimite National Park, Death Valley, Carlsbad Caverns and other iconic American locations.http://www.archives.gov/research/ansel-adams/

Early Adams photographs of the American West were exhibited in several museums including the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Fransisco, Alfred Stieglitz's New York gallery and were featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art and the Golden Gate International Exposition. Adams later went on to become a founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art's photography department and was awarded fellowships to take photos of the national parks by the Guggenheim Foundation.http://www.anseladams.org/info.html Adams died at the age of 82 in April of 1984.http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0220.html

In July 2010, it was reported that Rick Norsigian of California had acquired two boxes full of original Ansel Adams glass negatives. The negatives measured 6.5 by 8.5 inches and contained scenic images of landmarks in San Francisco and Yosemite. Norsigian found the boxes at a garage sale sometime during the 1990s. When appraised nearly 10 years later, the negatives were valued to be worth some $200 million. The glass negative photos were said to have been taken sometime between 1919 and the 1930s. According to experts, the negatives were believed to have been destroyed during a darkroom fire in the late 1930s.http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/07/27/ansel.adams.discovery/