Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/898390
and that was the thing that turned the corner. They became good friends and as a result we have pretty much everything Jeffers wrote inscribed to Ansel and Ansel took a portrait of Jeffers. There's a copy in the Tor House." Over the following decades, Ansel Adams continued to work diligently at mastering his craft and rose to the top of the pantheon of serious art photographers. "I never met anyone who worked as hard as he did," said friend and business manager, the late Bill Turnage in the Ric Burns 2002 "Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film." "Never took a day off, never took a vaca- tion. Ever. He simply worked seven days a week, every day of the year. Even when he was 80 he was still doing that." In the summer of 1919, Adams was hired as custodian of the Le Conte Memorial Lodge, the Sierra Club's Yosemite headquarters. To allow him to practice the piano, a ranger introduced him to artist and gallery owner Harry Best, who had not only a piano, but also a daughter named Virginia. One thing led to another and the pair were married in 1928. The couple had lived in San Francisco and Yosemite since their union. She ran her father's Yosemite gallery, and that income was what gave her husband the free- dom to create the stunning photographs for which he is rightfully revered. Best's Studio is now the Ansel Adams Gallery. "This year is our 115th year in business in Yosemite as a family business," Michael Adams says. Today it is managed by his son Matthew. 112 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 7 Breaking Waves north of Cypress Point, Pebble Beach Photo: Adams Family Collection and the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust