Ansel Adams "Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada, from Lone Pine, California - John

For those photographers out there that hesitate to alter their images, here is a lesson from famous photographer, Ansel Adams.

Dennis Purcell, a printer for Adams, says Adams could get the shots that he got because he "haunted the places."  In "Winter Sunrise," Adams literally sat with his camera on a tripod waiting for the hillside to light up just enough and praying for the horse to cooperate and face some other way accept butt-forward.

This photograph, which has been renowned as "one of the greatest in the history of American photography."  Little known fact, however, is that this photo as been altered.  Altered to the point that "by its own strictures The National Geographic would refuse to publish this photograph," according to New York Times blogger, Errol Morris.

Apparently, students of the local Lone Pine High School had whitewashed the letters "LP" on the side of this hill, permanently altering the landscape.

Here is what Adams's original photograph looked like.

Purcell says it would take him 30 minutes to use spot-tone to remove the LP from each print, and even then it could be spotted if looked at under the wrong light.  The negative itself was altered in the 1970's by scraping the silver off with a very sharp scalpel.

So, the question remains.  Is this the freedom of an artist, or against the purity of photography.  I'll leave that up to you to decide.

Click here for an interview with Purcell and more information about the photograph.