In 1941, a young Ansel Adams was hired by the United States government to photograph the country’s national parks. The breathtaking images taken by Adams illustrate both his early technical achievements with photography and earns his place among the world’s most renowned landscape photographers. Adams was instrumental in raising photography’s status to that of fine art, even helping to establish a permanent photography department at the New York Metropolitan Museum. As a diligent activist, he played a seminal role in the dawning of the environmental consciousness through his work on the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club.