Extraordinary new Ansel Adams show features his water works in all their glory

Ansel Adams, the godfather of American landscape photography is one of those creatives who is always a sheer pleasure to revisit. The man responsible for fixing an idea of how we see the United States and its monumental topography still has the ability to strike the viewer dumb with his work, however familiar we think we are with it.

A new show at London’s National Maritime Museum focuses on the photographer’s treatment of water – from ponds to geysers, rivers to snowscapes – and the manifold ways in which his unerring eye for a shot works with this most ephemeral substance produces a host of truly stupefying works.

With more than 100 prints on show, this is the perfect chance to remind ourselves just how and why Ansel Adams is so revered, and a great antidote to the Instagrammification of the way in which we view landscape photography.

Ansel Adams: Photography from the Mountains to the Sea runs until April 23.