Ansel Adams was an influential landscape photographer most widely known for his black and white images of the American West. He helped develop a method of understanding and using tonal range called the Zone System, and his images are well-known for their wide range of dark shadows and bright white highlights. ​

He became a pioneer in Romaticised landscape photography, taking many series of images in the American West, particularly Yosemite National Park and the mountainous structures found there.

Key Image Analysis:

TECHNICAL:
Adams uses natural lighting and a high tonal range to have a highly contrasted image and make the photo more intense. The high tonal range causes the sunlight reflecting off the river to stand out as bright, as well as increase the shadows in the dark rock on the mountains and the darker trees in the foreground. He has most likely used a tripod and a slow shutter speed to capture all this  detail and focus the entire image, creating the high tonal range that can be seen here.

VISUAL:
This image has a range of different textures, from the water in the river to the hard rock mountain and the trees and scrub-land , as well as the clouds in the sky, which creates balance throughout the image and  stays with the theme of the harmony of nature that the Romantic photographers strove for.​

CONCEPTUAL:
The ideals of Romanticism in art and photography are that nature is powerful, beautiful and unpredictable. This is reflected in the almost heavenly light coming from behind the mountain, which imposes over the whole scene and creates a sense  of majesty.​

CONTEXTUAL:
Adams himself spent a lot of his life taking photographs in this region of the American West and he was inspired by the untouched landscapes and the power of nature there. ​ This is represented through the use of photography as his own view, and of the camera lens as his own gaze.