Ansel Adams is the most popular and arguably the most influential photographer in American history, yet in some ways he remains poorly understood. From 9 November 2012 – 28 April 2013, the National Maritime Museum will be hosting a major exhibition of his works, featuring – for the first time – his pictures of water in all its forms.

Capitalising on this rare opportunity to consider in detail works by Adams drawn largely from the Center of Creative Photography, Arizona, as well private and public collections across the USA, the NMM will be hosting a two-day conference, structured around a series of individual papers and group workshops. This event is designed to explore the themes raised in the exhibition in order to situate Adams’s water images in a broader cultural context, including painting, film and literature. We welcome papers from scholars working in any field, which address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• The construction of Ansel Adams as icon: the association of author with subject

• Sea/waterways and national identity

• Water as ‘modernist’ subject

• Seriality and sequentiality

• Photographic technique

Please send abstracts of 250 words along with a short CV to Christine Riding (criding@rmg.co.uk). Individual papers should be no longer than 25 minutes and provision will be made for discussion. Deadline for abstracts: Monday, 20 August 2012.