As an example of precisely what Ansel meant by “extract” photography, this image is superb. But that’s not the only reason why it’s special. Look beyond the chemical jargon in “sodium sulfite,” and you’ll see a rare peek behind the curtain, into Ansel’s darkroom. Ansel didn’t just happen upon a pool of crystalline sodium sulfite on one of his photographic expeditions. In fact, the solution of water and sodium sulfite was an essential step in one of his photographic passion projects—the development of Polaroid’s unique experimental films. For over thirty years of his career, Ansel helped Polaroid to develop new films, serving as an invaluable consultant as well as an avid user of their products. This image was made using Polaroid’s innovative P/55 film—a novel film that produced both a photographic negative and a tiny, nearly-instant “positive” image, surrounded on all sides by a white border. In other words, the first iteration of what we now simply call “a Polaroid.” In Ansel’s day, the process of separating the negative from its backing required soaking it in a sodium sulfite bath—the source of the crystals photographed above.

Ansel Adams almost never took self-portraits, preferring to turn his lens on the natural world. Perhaps it’s in a photographer’s nature to deliberately slip into the backdrop, letting the lens of their camera stand in for the eye of the artist. But in this undoubtedly “meta” image, a Polaroid picture of the telltale sign of Polaroids being developed, one cannot help but see Ansel’s signature sly sense of humor. It’s easy to imagine Ansel catching sight of the dried-out developer solution, noticing the other-worldly swirls of the sodium crystals, and laughing to himself at the perfect marriage of film and subject. Perhaps that’s why Ansel resisted abstraction so much—because even his most “abstract” images contain within them a gloriously personal, wonderfully human context.