The mule on the left is Mistletoe. She carried 100lbs of his photography equipment. He did carry 50lbs, but let’s just say she’s the unsung heroes of those great Yosemite shots.

Doing some trivia sleuthing for a friend, and couldn’t really find anything trivial about A. Adams. My favorite photography trivia is actually about Edward Weston, who destroyed 2,000 photography negatives, for fear others would either print them badly, or print a bad negative, it’s a mystery (to me).

Short earthquake story- I had a lot of enlargers growing up, and two different darkrooms setup in our house- one in the garage and one in the bathroom. One weekend, my friend Kelsey (boy) came over and we were developing film in the bathroom (really). And once we got setup in there happily making prints, there was an earthquake. My mom was in her bathroom showering or getting dressed or something.

So we’re all taught that in earthquakes, you run to the doorjam and that’s the most secure spot to stand in. Kelsey and I scramble over each other to open the door and leverage ourselves between fixer baths and developer baths, strings strung up with drying prints, and of course, a boombox on top of the toilet, near the huge enlarger (plugged into the only outlet). Boombox was laying a Peter Gabriel tape, I remember.

Mom also ran to her doorjam. So we’re standing there, talking about the earthquake as the tremors die down, then there’s this moment that we realize my mom is in her underwear.