Mount Williamson, Sierra Nevada, from Manzanar, California,

1944, printed 1980

In 1943, Adams undertook an independent project to photograph the Manzanar Internment Camp, one of the detention centers where Japanese Americans were confined without being charged for a crime or granted due process. While many of the images focus upon daily life in Manzanar, presenting a sympathetic view of the detainees, here Adams sought to describe the relationship between the detainees and the landscape beyond the camp, photographing the majestic mountains in the distance. He published his images of Manzanar in the book Born Free and Equal and exhibited them at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1944. The display comprised the only major museum show documenting the Japanese American incarceration while it was ongoing.