Ansel Adams made this iconic image one November afternoon when, en route to Sante Fe, he spotted the moon rising over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Although Adams made many prints of Moonrise, no two are the same. It was challenging to make prints that satisfied him, and papers and toners varied constantly. Over time his interpretation of the negative changed. His assistant Mary Street Alinder recalled his painstaking darkroom work, which included burning the sky to darken it: "Ansel created Moonrise with a night sky, a luminous moon and an extraordinary cloud bank that seems to reflect the moon's brilliance. Moonrise is sleight of hand. Moonrise is magic."