Lake Tenaya (section)

Calm water stretches across the front of this photograph, holding a near perfect reflection of the granite domes and pine slopes that ring Lake Tenaya, high in California's Sierra Nevada. Edward Weston made the picture in 1937 while traveling through the American West on a Guggenheim grant, the first time in his life he could roam and photograph without worrying about paying commissions. A few big boulders poke up through the surface, small solid shapes that keep the eye from drifting too far into all that stillness.

Weston belonged to a circle of California photographers who prized clean, sharp images over soft or dreamy effects, and that honesty shows in every crisp edge of stone and the smooth wash of the sky. Rather than chasing grand drama, he found beauty in patient observation, letting the place speak for itself. The good news for anyone curious is that Lake Tenaya still sits along the Tioga Road in Yosemite, so you can pull over today and take in nearly the same view that stopped Weston in his tracks almost ninety years ago.