A New Tome Features Yosemite Through the Astute Eye of Ansel Adams

His wife, Virginia, grew up in the national park and was a devoted environmentalist.

Unless you’ve experienced Yosemite in person, the work of Ansel Adams is often what most people know of the breathtaking national park. In a new book devoted just to the photographer’s Yosemite portfolio, many images he handpicked before his death will be revealed in sequence for the first time. The October release of the book coincides with Yosemite’s anniversary of becoming a national park.

Ansel Adams’ Yosemite: The Special Edition Prints also features a foreword by President Barack Obama’s chief official White House photographer, Pete Souza, and an essay by Adams’ darkroom assistant. Adams’ grandson, Matthew, who has become an expert on his work and president of The Ansel Adams Gallery, described to CNN some of his favorite pieces from the Yosemite collection, including Clearing Winter Storm (c. 1937):

“It is one of Ansel’s masterpieces, and simply stunning,” says Matthew Adams. “There are so many nuances in the image that people inherently grasp, and I think it is as popular as it is because it speaks to something that’s more primordial, more in the core of the human than something that’s more superficial that some people will appreciate and others won’t. I don’t know anybody that will look at it and say, ‘I’m not interested.’”

See and read about more of his favorite Yosemite works here.