My favorite image of Adams is “Face of Half Dome”. The reason for this is because it is a sharp image that has a large amount of detail within it.

Technical

This image was taken on film in black and white originally. He also used a very high f-stop meaning that the image is sharp throughout. He also used a deep dark red filter.

Visual

The monolith is the main focus of the photo but there are other things like the ledge on the bottom right section of the photo and in the bottom left of the photo has detail showing the snow and the tree.

Contextual

Adams went to the spot where the photo was taken, first when he was 14 and then 11 years later, he want back to take this photo. When taking the photo he had his camera on a large tripod and had to take it on a two day hike to get to the spot.

Conceptual

The concept that Adams was aiming for and the point that he was trying to make to the viewer was that the American national parks are something that has undergone some change and he wanted to preserve the image before they changed beyond the point of no return. He also wanted to show the views with a level or Romanticism meaning that he would exaggerate the beauty and the views that he saw the ways that he did this is using colour filters and using very high focal lengths.