A print of Ansel Adams' Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941) is expected to make $200,000-300,000 ahead of a sale of photographs at Swann Auction Galleries.
The image is Adams' most iconic and is considered by many to be his masterpiece.
 Adams produced this print during the 1950s |
Adams later explained he "saw an extraordinary situation - an inevitable photograph!
"I almost ditched the car and rushed to set up my 8x10-inch view camera�Ǫ but I could not find my exposure meter!
"The situation was desperate: the low sun was trailing the edge of clouds in the west, and shadow would seem to dim the white crosses."
This particular print has an interesting provenance. It was given by Adams as a gift to Polaroid co-founder Edwin Land and has remained in his collection ever since.
Adams' record is held by another print of Moonrise, which sold for $609,600 at Sotheby's in 2006.
Dorothea Lange's The General Strike, Policeman is valued at $40,000-60,000.
The photograph was taken during a strike in San Francisco in 1934 and was one of a number that appeared in social journal Survey Graphic.
Lange is best remembered for her pioneering photographs of unemployed and migrant workers during the Great Depression.
Her record at auction is $822,400, paid for a work titled White Angel Breadline (1933) at Sotheby's in 2005.
The sale will take place in New York on February 25.
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