I just finished this book, © 1996, and recommend it to anyone who has not. Alinder became Adams's chief assistant and close friend for a number of his last years, up through his passing. Intimate with both his family and business affairs, she offers a view of the great photographer's life little known generally, an appreciative, fair, and thoughtful treatment of the strengths and weakness of this exceptional artist and his outstanding influence in 20th-Century photography as well as his energetic environmental activism. As fully researched and footnoted as a doctoral thesis, it's beautifully composed; even when it may momentarily appear to be skipping a beat, there is a reason, one later discovers.

Alinder was the prime force behind Adams's autobiography as well as the subsequent Letters and Images. She read his entire correspondence and reviewed the entirety of his 40,000 proofs, most never printed. She and her husband, also a former Adams assistant, now run the Alinder Gallery in California.