One of the oldest –  and we at G.D.P. think finest – museums in America is the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

The combination of the very old buildings with the bright glass atrium give the place a really friendly feel and their permanent collection is great, including maritime artefacts and paintings (including one of impossibly looped twisters), plus an impressive collection of ancient Chinese objects.

In 2012 P.E.M. is having a special year of photography, including the current exhibition of the photographer, Ansel Adams. The show includes some images not on view before and ones special to the artist himself, such as one that hung over his desk. There are also some large scale photos made for the exhition. All the photos are linked to water. Some are narrative series and experimental images. Do you agree with us that these images are stunning?

If you are interested in this kind of dramatic landscape photography you might like our magazine projects This Place which helps you to create double page spreads of landscapes, small or large, or Structures which helps you design eye-catching covers.

The Adams exhibition runs till October – if anyone is lucky enought to see this please send us a report. Meanwhile we here in the U.K. will wait until the show comes across to the Martime Museum in Greenwhich. More about P.E.M. at www.pem.org/index.php – the place is worth a visit anytime even without the  Adams photos.

Image credits:

Top: The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942

Middle: Barnacles, Cape Cod, 1938 Photograph by Ansel Adams Collection Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona; ©2011 The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.

Bottom: Fern Spring, Dusk, Yosemite Valley, about 1961
Photograph by Ansel Adams Collection Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona; ©2011 The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.

All images courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum press office.