Yosemite National Park and the High Sierra were the places closest to Ansel Adams' heart, and this magnificent new collection presents the finest selction of his photographs and writings yet published on this "vast edifice of stone and space." Inspired by their grandeur, their wildness, and their primeval mystery, Adams' photos came to represent America's National Parks. During his lifetime Adams published seven books of images from this region; this new book brings the best of these early volumes together into a single work. His writings - alive with anecdote and insight - provide a backdrop for these stirring images, and an introduction by John Szarkowski, the most distinguished photography critic and curator of his time, provides testimony to the enduring impact of Adams' Yosemite vision. Yosemite and the High Sierra represents Adams' legacy at its most distilled and timeless. In a career that spanned over five decades, Adams was at once America's foremost landscape photographer and one of its most ardent environmentalists. A master photographer, teacher and naturalist, the profound impact of his work continues to expand as each generation discovers the magnificent, luminous beauty of his art. John Szarkowski, director of the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art for twenty-six years until his retirement in 1991, is the author of such classic works as Looking at Photographers, The Photographer's Eye, and Photography Until Now. He was the curator of the Ansel Adams exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 1979.