Are you at one or, like Woody Allen, two with nature? It matters not because the current photography exhibition of work by Ansel Adams at the Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) is truly illuminating. Seeing trees for the forest and viewing Adams making prints of stately mountains out of mere molehills for negatives are wonders to behold in this exhibit.

You may hate images of nature or love them, but Adams’s nature photographs are rich with nuances. He is known for black and white photography with a huge range of values, from the darkest darks to the most shimmering whites. A good example of this range of values can be seen in Adams’s “Aspens, Northern New Mexico” (1958). Though, his most famous subjects are images from the scenic Sierra Nevada Mountains, the majestic Yosemite Valley, and the Grand Tetons. Even if some viewers might consider these images clichés due to their being the subject of so many posters, you will be surely be seduced when viewing the original prints.

As curated by MOPA’s Curator of Photography Carol McCusker, Ansel Adams: A Life’s Work gives personal insight into how the photographer made such famous images as his moon rising over Yosemite’s Half Dome or its rising over Hernandez, New Mexico. Anyone can take a snapshot, but Adams created magnificent and eternal images in his darkroom from snap-shots through the careful exposure--dodging and burning--of his prints. His negatives were not always faultless; but by using his mastery of darkroom techniques, Ansel Adams could transform base images burned into his silver-nitrate film into prints of pure poetic gold.

The best images are more a product of his revision and editing than the instant snap of the camera’s shutter. Several variations of his most familiar works appear in this exhibit to demonstrate this fact. For example, three printings from the same 1941 negative "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico" reveal the work it took to create one of Adams’s most famous images. The moon rises over a small desert town with a few clouds overhead. Over the years he printed itdifferently, the first printing from the 1960s is flat, and the clouds are distracting. The second printing from the early 1970s is better because of its increased value range, but the third and final printing from 1978, with its black sky and low aureole of clouds crowning this humble town in the desert, is a revelatory experience due to the image’s drama and majesty. Multiple versions of Adams’s "Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, Yosemite," originally snapped in 1927 and reprinted differently until 1980, are here, too. How Mr. Adams achieved his broad value range was systematized in his 1941 Zone System. He wrote several books on how to achieve optimal print exposure through visualization, metering, and darkroom practices. Excerpts from a good film documenting Mr. Adams at work in the darkroom developing his prints is a central feature of this exhibit.

The exhibition begins with a few of young Ansel’s snapshots and traces his long career. It also includes Adams’s work documenting the Manzanar internment camp and its Japanese descent American inhabitants during World War II. Several other famous pictures taken in Manzanar’s surrounding Owens Valley as well as several new acquisitions to MoPA’s permanent collection are also on view.

If you have any interest in photography, this show is for you. [Move over Mr. Avedon, because an authentic artist is on display at MoPA].