One early morning in 1906 brought the great San Francisco earthquake. The family home, which was built by Ansel's father between two bays on the sand dunes beyond the Golden Gate was badly damaged. The family and servants escaped with relatively minor injuries while around them, there was devastation. The city burned, buildings crumbled, and hundreds of lives were lost.
"My closest experience with profound human suffering was that earthquake and fire. But we were not burned out, ruined, or bereft of family and friends. I never went to war, too young for the First and too old for the Second. The great events of the world have been tragic pageants, not personal involvements. My world has been a world too few people are lucky enough to live in—one of peace and beauty. I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate."5
Hinting at the direction of the rest of his life he also states of the earthquake; "I am sure that my father, if present, would have recorded it all with his Bullseye Box camera."6
