Carrying Meaning

“A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.” Ansel Adams

Earlier this month, many of us celebrated the runners covering distance at the New York City Marathon. What stands out about events like these is that, at their core, they are about connection. They aren’t merely athletic competitions but gatherings built on encouragement. On people showing up for one another. Along the route, families, friends, and strangers line the streets, cheering for runners they’ve never met. It’s a simple yet profound reminder of what community looks like: people coming together simply to witness and support.

Beneath the surface, there’s a deeper current. A shared need for connection. It isn’t something that emerges after the event but rather something that fuels it. Humanity has always thrived through cooperation; survival has depended on it. That impulse to bond, to move as one, is ancient. Within the crowds and the cheers, one can almost sense that lineage. The echo of something fundamental that has carried humankind through millennia.

Even now, in a country often marked by division, that connective tissue still holds. Beneath the noise and politics, a quiet truth remains: people want to be understood. Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes might have called this self-interest, a movement driven by fear or survival. Yet there is something gentler at the root of it. A longing to be seen as one truly is, to know and be known.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was a philosopher and political theorist.

Ansel Adams often spoke of photographing the landscape not simply as scenery but as spirit. His images of rocks and trees were never just documents of nature; they revealed that these forms, like people, carry meaning. They radiate something larger, reminding viewers that they belong to the same living world. Through this lens, his photographs become conversations: between humanity and the land, between artist and viewer, between one being and another.

That same impulse drives artists across generations. Art becomes a bridge. Linking individuals to one another, to nature, and to the inner lives that rarely find words. Even when made in solitude, art reaches outward, asking to be felt, to be recognized. That recognition, that moment of understanding, sustains the creative act itself.

Perhaps Hobbes was right that people are driven by self-interest. But perhaps that desire is not born of fear but of empathy. Creation, celebration, and even the act of cheering are all gestures of connection. In this way, a marathon is not so different from a photograph or a painting. Each becomes a quiet offering, an attempt to close the distance between individuals, a shared pulse that affirms what it means to be human.

This is what continues to resonate in Adams’s work. It isn’t simply about beauty or the natural world; it’s about connection. The most enduring art, like the most human moments, speaks in a language beyond words. Something intuitive and deeply felt. It reminds us that even now, people are still capable of seeing one another, and still capable of being moved.

In Conversation with Ange-Frédéric Koffi

"I'm a bit like a sponge. I'm taking materials and trying to create something that speaks to different people."

Image credits: The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, Jon Pack, Ange-Frédéric Koffi