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Ansel Adams
The Tetons - Snake River (1942)
by Ansel AdamsAnsel Easton Adams
(February 20, 1902 – April 22,
1984) was an American
photographer, best known for his
black and white photographs of
California's Yosemite Valley.
Adams was also the author of
numerous books about
photography, including his
trilogy of technical instruction
manuals (The Camera, The
Negative and The Print). He
co-founded the photographic
association Group f/64 along
with other masters like Edward
Weston, Willard Van Dyke, and
Imogen Cunningham.
He and Fred Archer are credited
with creating the zone system, a
technique which allows
photographers to translate the
light they see into specific
densities on negatives and
paper, thus giving them better
control over finished
photographs. Adams also
pioneered the idea of
visualization (which he often
called 'previsualization',
though he later acknowledged
that term to be a redundancy) of
the finished print based upon
the measured light values in the
scene being photographed.
Life
Close-up of leaves In Glacier
National Park (1942) Farm
workers at Manzanar War
Relocation Center with Mt.
Williamson in the
background.Adams was born in San
Francisco, California in an
upper-class family. When he was
four, he was tossed face-first
into a garden wall in an
aftershock from the 1906 San
Francisco earthquake, breaking
his nose. His nose was never
repaired and appeared crooked
for his entire life.
Adams disliked the uniformity of
the education system and left
school in 1915, at the age of 12
to educate himself. His original
passion was to become a concert
pianist, but Adams became
interested in photography after
seeing Paul Strand's negatives.
Adams long alternated between a
career as a concert pianist and
one as a photographer. He met
his future wife, the camera-shy
Virginia Best, in Yosemite.
At age seventeen, Adams joined
the Sierra Club, a group
dedicated to preserving the
natural world's wonders and
resources. He remained a member
throughout his lifetime and
served as a director, as did his
wife, Virginia. Adams was an
avid mountaineer in his youth
and participated in the club's
annual "high trips",
and was later responsible for
several first ascents in the
Sierra Nevada. It was at Half
Dome in 1927 that he first found
that he could make photographs
that were, in his own words,
"...an austere and blazing
poetry of the real". Adams
became an environmentalist, and
his photographs are a record of
what many of these national
parks were like before human
intervention and travel. His
work has promoted many of the
goals of the Sierra Club and
brought environmental issues to
light.
Photographs in Adams' limited
edition book, Sierra Nevada: The
John Muir Trail, along with his
testimony, are credited with
helping secure the designation
of Sequoia and Kings Canyon as
national parks in 1940.
During World War Two Adams
worked on creating epic
photographic murals for the
Department of the Interior.
Adams was distressed by the
Japanese American Internment
that occurred after the Pearl
Harbor attack. He was given
permission to visit the Manzanar
War Relocation Center in the
Owens Valley, at the foot of
Mount
Williamson. The resulting
photo-essay first appeared in a
Museum of Modern Art exhibit,
and later was published as Born
Free and Equal: Photographs of
the loyal Japanese-Americans at
Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo
County, California.
In 1952 Adams was one of the
founders of the magazine
Aperture.
In March 1963, Ansel Adams and
Nancy Newhall accepted a
commission from Clark Kerr, then
President of the University of
California, to produce a series
of photographs of the
University's campuses to
commemorate the centennial
celebration of the University.
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.
Adams was the recipient of three
Guggenheim fellowships during
his career. He was elected in
1966 a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. In
1980 Jimmy Carter awarded him
the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, the nation's highest
civilian honor.
Ansel Adams died on April 22,
1984 from heart failure
aggravated by cancer. When he
died he left behind his wife,
two children (Michael born
August 1933, Anne born 1935) and
five grandchildren.
Publishing rights for the Adams'
photographs are handled by the
trustees of The Ansel Adams
Publishing Rights Trust.
The Minarets Wilderness in the
Inyo National Forest was renamed
the Ansel Adams Wilderness in
1984 in his honor. Mount Ansel
Adams, an 11,760 ft. peak in the
Sierra Nevada, was named for him
in 1985.
The full archive of Ansel Adams'
work can be found at the Center
for Creative Photography (CCP)
at the University of Arizona in
Tucson.
Works
Evening, McDonald Lake,
Glacier National Park (1942) by
Ansel
Adams Adams Church, Taos, Pueblo
(1942) by Ansel Adams
Notable photographs
Monolith, The Face of Half
Dome, 1927.
Rose and Driftwood, 1932.
Clearing Winter Storm, 1940.
Moonrise over Hernandez, New
Mexico, 1941.
Ice on Ellery Lake, Sierra
Nevada, 1941.
Georgia O'Keeffe and Orville Cox
at Canyon de Chelly
Aspens, New Mexico, 1958.
Photographic books
Ansel Adams: The Spirit of
Wild Places, 2005. ISBN
1-59764-069-7
America's Wilderness, 1997. ISBN
1-56138-744-4
California, 1997. ISBN
0-8212-2369-0
Yosemite, 1995. ISBN
0-8212-2196-5
The National Park Photographs,
1995. ISBN 0-89660-056-4
Photographs of the Southwest,
1994. ISBN 0-8212-0699-0
Ansel Adams: In Color, 1993.
ISBN 0-8212-1980-4
Our Current National Parks,
1992.
Ansel Adams: Classic Images,
1986. ISBN 0-8212-1629-5
Polaroid Land Photography, 1978.
ISBN 0-8212-0729-6
These We Inherit: The Parklands
of America, with Nancy Newhall,
1962.
This is the American Earth, with
Nancy Newhall, 1960. ISBN 0-8212
-2182-5
Born Free and Equal, 1944.
Spotted Dog Press
Technical books
The Camera, 1995. ISBN
0-8212-2184-1
The Negative, 1995. ISBN
0-8212-2186-8
The Print, 1995. ISBN
0-8212-2187-6
Examples: The Making of 40
Photographs ISBN 0-8212-1750-X
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