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Later career

By the 1960s, Adams had developed gout and arthritis and hoped that moving to a new home would make him feel better. He and his wife considered Santa Fe, but they both had commitments in California (Virginia was managing the Yosemite studio of her father). A friend offered to sell them property in Carmel Highlands, overlooking the Big Sur coastline. With architect Eldridge Spencer, they began planning the new home in 1961 and moved there in 1965. Adams began to devote much of his time to printing the backlog of negatives that had accumulated over forty years.

In the 1960s, a few mainstream art galleries that had considered photography unworthy of exhibit alongside fine paintings decided to show Adams's images, particularly the former Kenmore Gallery in Philadelphia. In March 1963, Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall accepted a commission from Clark Kerr, the president of the University of California, to produce a series of photographs of the university's campuses to commemorate its centennial celebration. The collection, titled Fiat Lux after the university's motto, was published in 1967 and now resides in the Museum of Photography at the University of California, Riverside.

During the 1970s, Adams reprinted negatives from his vault, in part to satisfy the demand of art museums that had recently established departments of photography.

In 1972, Adams contributed images to help publicize Proposition 20, which authorized the state to regulate development along portions of the California coast.

In 1974, he exhibited at the Rencontres d'Arles (formerly known as the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles), an annual summer photography festival in France. He also had a major retrospective exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1975, he cofounded the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, which handles some of his estate matters.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter commissioned Adams to make the first official photographic portrait of a U.S. president.