“When viewed in sequence, the Parmelian Prints portfolio presents the Sierra Nevada wilderness through the perspective of a hiker, one who moves through terrain on foot, builds campfires from fallen branches, washes in cold mountain lakes, and sleeps under a canopy of stars.”
In April 1926, Adams showed a selection of his photographs to insurance agent and California arts patron Albert Bender. Impressed, Bender immediately suggested issuing a portfolio. They agreed to a retail price of $50 per copy, and Bender purchased ten copies for himself on the spot. Adams printed all the Parmelian prints on Kodak Vitava Athena parchment paper – a cream-colored gelatin silver paper that is translucent when held up to the light – that was commercially available from 1925 to 1928. Adams completed about one hundred sets of Parmelian Prints, but some were destroyed in a warehouse fire, leaving approximately seventy-five portfolios that were sold and delivered to clients.
Unsure of the market for a portfolio of photographs—an unprecedented idea at the time—the publisher Jean Chambers Moore coined the term Parmelian to heighten its appeal. In his autobiography, Adams states, ‘I am not proud at allowing this breach of faith in my medium. And then, to my chagrin, when I saw the finished title page I found an error, Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras. The name Sierra is already plural. To add an s is a linguistic, Californian, and mountaineering sin’ (An Autobiography, pp. 82-3). In spite of his regrets about the portfolio’s title, Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras was Adams’ first major commercial endeavor and a crucial starting point in his development as a professional photographer.
