Ansel Adams Versus Vittorio Sella

Mountain photography by Ansel Adams and Vittorio Sella in a catalog that, for the first time, emphasizes the close similarity between the two photographers. "Sella has brought to us not only the facts and forms of far-off splendors of the world, but the essence of experience which finds a spiritual response in the inner recesses of our mind and heart," writes Adams at the end of his text, published in the Sierra Club Bulletin, December 1946, which introduces Sella’s work to the American public.Adams and Sella share a similar view of peaks, snow, and slopes. Both photographers resemble one another not only in their ideas, but also in the importance ascribed to technical expertise and an in-depth knowledge of their medium. For both of these are essential requirements if the revelation of nature and the beauty of the world are to be achieved and experienced fully, firstly at a spiritual and physical level, and secondly at a rational and aesthetic one.What their photographs immediately reveal, apart from an almost heroic satisfaction at a successfully completed exploit, is their amazement at the wonder of the world capable of surprising them every time, as it still astonishes us today.