Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American
landscape photographer
Landscape photography shows the spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes ...
and
environmentalist
An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...
known for his
black-and-white images of the
American West
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...
. He helped found
Group f/64
Group 64 or f.64 was a group founded by seven 20th-century San Francisco Bay Area photographers who shared a common photographic style characterized by sharply focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western (U.S.) viewpo ...
, an association of photographers advocating "pure" photography which favored
sharp focus and the use of the full
tonal range of a photograph. He and
Fred Archer Fred or Frederick Archer may refer to:
* Fred Archer (jockey) (1857–1886), English jockey
* Fred R. Archer (1889–1963), photographer and co-inventor of the photographic Zone System
* Frederick Scott Archer (1813–1857), inventor of the photogr ...
developed an exacting system of image-making called the
Zone System
The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer. Adams described the Zone System as " ..not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles ...
, a method of achieving a desired final print through a deeply technical understanding of how tonal range is recorded and developed during
exposure,
negative development, and
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...
. The resulting clarity and depth of such images characterized his photography.
Adams was a life-long advocate for
environmental conservation
*Environmental protection
*Nature conservation
Nature conservation is the moral philosophy and conservation movement focused on protecting species from extinction, maintaining and restoring habitats, enhancing ecosystem services, and protec ...
, and his photographic practice was deeply entwined with this advocacy. At age 12, he was given his first camera during his first visit to
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ...
. He developed his early photographic work as a member of the
Sierra Club. He was later contracted with the
United States Department of the Interior
The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the ma ...
to make photographs of national parks. For his work and his persistent advocacy, which helped expand the National Park system, he was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...
in 1980.
Adams was a key advisor in establishing the photography department at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York, an important landmark in securing photography's institutional legitimacy. He helped to stage that department's first photography exhibition, helped found the photography magazine
''Aperture'', and co-founded the
Center for Creative Photography at the
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory.
T ...
.
Early life
Birth
Adams was born in the
Fillmore District of San Francisco, the only child of Charles Hitchcock Adams and Olive Bray. He was named after his uncle, Ansel Easton. His mother's family came from
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, where his maternal grandfather had a successful freight-hauling business but lost his wealth investing in failed mining and real estate ventures in Nevada. The Adams family came from New England, having migrated from the north of Ireland during the early 18th century. His paternal grandfather founded a prosperous lumber business which his father later managed. Later in life, Adams condemned the industry his grandfather worked in for cutting down many of the great
redwood forests.
Early childhood
One of Adams's earliest memories was watching the smoke from the fires caused by the
1906 San Francisco earthquake. Then four years old, Adams was uninjured in the initial shaking but was tossed face-first into a garden wall during an aftershock three hours later, breaking and scarring his nose. A doctor recommended that his nose be reset once he reached maturity, but it remained crooked and necessitated
mouth breathing
Mouth breathing, medically known as chronic oral ventilation, is long-term breathing through the mouth. It often is caused by an obstruction to breathing through the nose, the innate breathing organ in the human body. Chronic mouth breathing ma ...
for the rest of his life.
In 1907, his family moved west to a new home near the
Seacliff
Seacliff comprises a beach, an estate and a harbour. It lies east of North Berwick, East Lothian, Scotland.
History
The beach and estate command a strategic position at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, and control of the area has been con ...
neighborhood of San Francisco, just south of the
Presidio Army Base. The home had a "splendid view" of the
Golden Gate
The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by t ...
and the
Marin Headlands
The Marin Headlands is a hilly peninsula at the southernmost end of Marin County, California, United States, located just north of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge, which connects the two counties and peninsulas. The entire area is pa ...
.
Adams was a
hyperactive
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by excessive amounts of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that are pervasive, impairing in multiple contexts, and otherwise age-inappr ...
child and prone to frequent sickness and
hypochondria. He had few friends, but his family home and surroundings on the heights facing the Golden Gate provided ample childhood activities. He had little patience for games or sports; but he enjoyed the
beauty of nature from an early age, collecting bugs and exploring
Lobos Creek all the way to
Baker Beach and the sea cliffs leading to
Lands End
Land's End ( kw, Penn an Wlas or ''Pedn an Wlas'') is a headland and tourist and holiday complex in western Cornwall, England, on the Penwith peninsula about west-south-west of Penzance at the western end of the A30 road. To the east of it is ...
, "San Francisco's wildest and rockiest coast, a place strewn with shipwrecks and rife with landslides."
Early education
Adams's father had a three-inch telescope; and they enthusiastically shared the hobby of astronomy, visiting the
Lick Observatory on
Mount Hamilton together. His father later served as the paid secretary-treasurer of the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific, from 1925 to 1950.
Charles Adams's business suffered large financial losses after the death of his father in the aftermath of the
Panic of 1907
The Panic of 1907, also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis, was a financial crisis that took place in the United States over a three-week period starting in mid-October, when the New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% from ...
. Some of the loss was due to his uncle Ansel Easton and
Cedric Wright
George Cedric Wright (April 13, 18891959) was an American violinist and a wilderness photographer of the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), High Sierra. He was Ansel Adams's mentor and best friend for decades, and accompanied Adams when three of his most fa ...
's father George secretly having sold their shares of the company, "knowingly providing the controlling interest", to the Hawaiian Sugar Trust for a large amount of money. By 1912, the family's
standard of living had dropped sharply.
Adams was dismissed from several private schools for being restless and inattentive, so when he was 12, his father decided to remove him from school. For the next two years he was educated by private tutors, his aunt Mary, and his father. Mary was a devotee of
Robert G. Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll (; August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899), nicknamed "the Great Agnostic", was an American lawyer, writer, and orator during the Golden Age of Free Thought, who campaigned in defense of agnosticism.
Personal life
Robert Inge ...
, a 19th-century agnostic and
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
advocate, so Ingersoll's teachings were important to his upbringing. During the
Panama–Pacific International Exposition
The Panama–Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California, United States, from February 20 to December 4, 1915. Its stated purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely s ...
in 1915, his father insisted that he spend part of each day studying the exhibits as part of his education. He eventually resumed, and completed, his formal education by attending the Mrs. Kate M. Wilkins Private School, graduating from the eighth grade on June 8, 1917. During his later years, he displayed his diploma in the guest bathroom of his home.
His father raised him to follow the ideas of
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
: to live a modest, moral life guided by a social responsibility to man and nature. Adams had a loving relationship with his father, but he had a distant relationship with his mother, who did not approve of his interest in photography. The day after her death in 1950, Ansel had a dispute with the undertaker when choosing the casket in which to bury her. He chose the cheapest in the room, a $260 coffin that seemed the least he could purchase without doing the job himself. The undertaker remarked, "Have you no respect for the dead?" Adams replied, "One more crack like that and I will take Mama elsewhere."
Youth
![Best studio Yosemite 1920s](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Best_studio_Yosemite_1920s.gif)
Adams became interested in playing the piano at age 12 after hearing his 16-year-old neighbor
Henry Cowell play on the Adamses' piano, and he taught himself to play and read music.
Cowell, who later became a well-known avant-garde composer, gave Adams some lessons. Over the next decade, three music teachers pushed him to develop technique and discipline, and he became determined to pursue a career as a classical pianist.
Adams first visited Yosemite National Park in 1916 with his family. He wrote of his first view of the valley: "the splendor of Yosemite burst upon us and it ''was'' glorious…. One wonder after another descended upon us…. There was light everywhere…. A new era began for me." His father gave him his first camera during that stay, an
Eastman Kodak Brownie box camera, and he took his first photographs with his "usual hyperactive enthusiasm". He returned to Yosemite on his own the next year with better cameras and a tripod. During the winters of 1917 and 1918, he learned basic darkroom technique while working part-time for a San Francisco photograph finisher.
Adams contracted the Spanish flu during the
1918 flu pandemic, from which he needed several weeks to recuperate. He read a book about lepers and became obsessed with cleanliness; he was afraid to touch anything without immediately washing his hands afterwards. Over the objections of his doctor, he prevailed on his parents to take him back to Yosemite, and the visit cured him of his disease and compulsions.
Adams avidly read photography magazines, attended camera club meetings, and went to photography and art exhibits. He explored the
High Sierra during summer and winter with retired geologist and amateur ornithologist Francis Holman, whom he called "Uncle Frank". Holman taught him camping and climbing; however, their shared ignorance of safe climbing techniques such as
belaying
Belaying is a variety of techniques climbers use to create friction within a climbing system, particularly on a climbing rope, so that a falling climber does not fall very far. A climbing partner typically applies tension at the other end of t ...
almost led to disaster on more than one occasion.
While in Yosemite, Adams had need of a piano to practice on. A ranger introduced him to landscape painter Harry Best, who kept a studio home in Yosemite and lived there during the summers. Best allowed Adams to practice on his old
square piano
The square piano is a type of piano that has horizontal strings arranged diagonally across the rectangular case above the hammers and with the keyboard set in the long side, with the sounding board above a cavity in the short side. It is variously ...
. Adams grew interested in Best's daughter Virginia and later married her. On her father's death in 1936, Virginia inherited the studio and continued to operate it until 1971. The studio is now known as the Ansel Adams Gallery and remains owned by the Adams family.
Sierra Club and piano work
At age 17, Adams joined the Sierra Club,
a group dedicated to protecting the wild places of the earth, and he was hired as the summer caretaker of the Sierra Club visitor facility in Yosemite Valley, the
LeConte Memorial Lodge The LeConte Memorial Lodge, now known as the Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center, is a structure in Yosemite National Park in California, United States. LeConte is spelled variously as Le Conte or as Leconte. Built in 1903 by the Sierra Club, it ...
, from 1920 to 1923.
He remained a member throughout his lifetime and served as a director, as did his wife. He was first elected to the Sierra Club's board of directors in 1934 and served on the board for 37 years.
Adams participated in the club's annual
High Trips
The High Trips were large annual wilderness excursions organized and led by the Sierra Club, beginning in 1901. The High Trips lasted until the early 1970s, and were replaced by a larger number of smaller trips to wilderness areas worldwide.
Orig ...
, later becoming assistant manager and official photographer for the trips.
He is credited with several
first ascent
In mountaineering, a first ascent (abbreviated to FA in guide books) is the first successful, documented attainment of the top of a mountain or the first to follow a particular climbing route. First mountain ascents are notable because they en ...
s in the Sierra Nevada.
During his twenties, most of his friends had musical associations, particularly violinist and amateur photographer Cedric Wright, who became his best friend as well as his philosophical and cultural mentor. Their shared philosophy was from
Edward Carpenter
Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929) was an English utopian socialist, poet, philosopher, anthologist, an early activist for gay rightsWarren Allen Smith: ''Who's Who in Hell, A Handbook and International Directory for Human ...
's ''Towards Democracy'', a literary work which endorsed the pursuit of beauty in life and art. For several years, Adams carried a pocket edition with him while at Yosemite; and it became his personal philosophy as well. He later stated, "I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate."
During summer, Adams would enjoy a life of hiking, camping, and photographing; and the rest of the year he worked to improve his piano playing, perfecting his piano technique and musical expression. He also gave piano lessons for extra income that allowed him to purchase a grand piano suitable to his musical ambitions. Adams was still planning a career in music. He felt that his small hands limited his repertoire, but qualified judges considered him a gifted pianist.
However, when he formed the Milanvi Trio with a violinist and a dancer, he proved a poor accompanist. It took seven more years for him to conclude that, at best, he might become only a concert pianist of limited range, an accompanist, or a piano teacher.
Photographic career
1920s
Pictorialism
![Lodgepole Pines photo by Ansel Adams](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Lodgepole_Pines_photo_by_Ansel_Adams.jpg)
Adams's first photographs were published in 1921, and Best's Studio began selling his Yosemite prints the next year. His early photos already showed careful composition and sensitivity to tonal balance. In letters and cards to family, he wrote of having dared to climb to the best viewpoints and to brave the worst elements.
During the mid-1920s, the fashion in photography was
pictorialism
Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer ha ...
, which strove to imitate paintings with soft focus, diffused light, and other techniques. Adams experimented with such techniques, as well as the
bromoil process, which involved brushing an oily ink onto the paper. An example is ''
Lodgepole Pines, Lyell Fork of the Merced River, Yosemite National Park'' (originally named ''Tamarack Pine''), taken in 1921. Adams used a soft-focus lens, "capturing a glowing luminosity that captured the mood of a magical summer afternoon".
For a short time Adams used hand-coloring, but declared in 1923 that he would do this no longer. By 1925 he had rejected pictorialism altogether for a more realistic approach that relied on sharp focus, heightened contrast, precise exposure, and darkroom craftsmanship.
''Monolith''
![Ansel-adams-monolith-the-face-of-half-dome](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Ansel-adams-monolith-the-face-of-half-dome.jpg)
In 1927, Adams began working with
Albert M. Bender, a San Francisco insurance magnate and arts patron. Bender helped Adams produce his first portfolio in his new style, ''
Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras'', which included his famous image ''
Monolith, the Face of Half Dome'', which was taken with his Korona view camera, using glass plates and a dark red filter (to heighten the tonal contrasts). On that excursion, he had only one plate left, and he "visualized" the effect of the blackened sky before risking the last image. He later said, "I had been able to realize a desired image: not the way the subject appeared in reality but how it ''felt'' to me and how it must appear in the finished print." One biographer calls ''Monolith'' Adams's most significant photograph because the "extreme manipulation of tonal values" was a departure from all previous photography. Adams's concept of visualization, which he first defined in print in 1934, became a core principle in his photography.
Adams's first portfolio was a success, earning nearly $3,900 with the sponsorship and promotion of Bender. Soon he received commercial assignments to photograph the wealthy patrons who bought his portfolio. He also began to understand how important it was that his carefully crafted photos were reproduced to best effect. At Bender's invitation, he joined the Roxburghe Club, an association devoted to fine printing and high standards in book arts. He learned much about printing techniques, inks, design, and layout, which he later applied to other projects.
Adams married Virginia Best in 1928, after a pause from 1925 to 1926 during which he had brief relationships with various women. The newlyweds moved in with his parents to save expenses. The following year, they had a home built next door and connected it to the older house by a hallway.
1930s
Pure photography
![Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-E23 levels adj](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Ansel_Adams_-_National_Archives_79-AA-E23_levels_adj.jpg)
Between 1929 and 1942, Adams's work matured, and he became more established. The 1930s were a particularly experimental and productive time for him. He expanded the technical range of his works, emphasizing detailed close-ups as well as large forms, from mountains to factories.
Bender took Adams on visits to
Taos, New Mexico
Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Cha ...
, where Adams met and made friends with the poet
Robinson Jeffers
John Robinson Jeffers (January 10, 1887 – January 20, 1962) was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. Much of Jeffers's poetry was written in narrative and epic form. However, he is also known for his short ...
, artists
John Marin and
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
, and photographer
Paul Strand
Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. ...
.
His talkative, high-spirited nature combined with his excellent piano playing made him popular among his artist friends. His first book, ''
Taos Pueblo
Taos Pueblo (or Pueblo de Taos) is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos-speaking (Tiwa) Native American tribe of Puebloan people. It lies about north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico. The pueblos are considered to be one of the oldest ...
'', was published in 1930 with text by writer
Mary Hunter Austin
Mary Hunter Austin (September 9, 1868 – August 13, 1934) was an American writer. One of the early nature writers of the American Southwest, her classic ''The Land of Little Rain'' (1903) describes the fauna, flora, and people – as well as ev ...
.
Strand proved especially influential. Adams was impressed by the simplicity and detail of Strand's negatives, which showed a style that ran counter to the soft-focus, impressionistic pictorialism still popular at the time.
Strand shared secrets of his technique with Adams and convinced him to pursue photography fully. One of Strand's suggestions that Adams adopted was to use glossy paper to intensify tonal values.
Adams put on his first solo museum exhibition, ''Pictorial Photographs of the Sierra Nevada Mountains by Ansel Adams'', at the
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
in 1931; it featured 60 prints taken in the High Sierra and the
Canadian Rockies
The Canadian Rockies (french: Rocheuses canadiennes) or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part ...
. He received a favorable review from the ''Washington Post'': "His photographs are like portraits of the giant peaks, which seem to be inhabited by mythical gods."
Despite his success, Adams felt that he was not yet up to the standards of Strand. He decided to broaden his subject matter to include still life and close-up photos and to achieve higher quality by "visualizing" each image before taking it. He emphasized the use of small apertures and long exposures in natural light, which created sharp details with a wide range of distances in focus, as demonstrated in ''Rose and Driftwood'' (1933), one of his finest still-life photographs.
In 1932, Adams had a group show at the
M. H. de Young Museum
The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the California Pala ...
with
Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham (; April 12, 1883 – June 23, 1976) was an American photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. Cunningham was a member of the California-based Group f/64, known for its dedication to t ...
and
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...
, and they soon formed Group f/64 which espoused "pure or
straight photography" over pictorialism ( being a very small
aperture
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane.
An ...
setting that gives great
depth of field). The group's manifesto stated: "Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form."
Imitating the example of photographer
Alfred Stieglitz, Adams opened his own art and photography gallery in San Francisco in 1933. He also began to publish essays in photography magazines and wrote his first instructional book, ''Making a Photograph'', in 1935.
Sierra Nevada
During the summers, Adams often participated in Sierra Club High Trips outings, as a paid photographer for the group; and the rest of the year a core group of Club members socialized regularly in San Francisco and Berkeley. In 1933, his first child Michael was born, followed by Anne two years later.
During the 1930s, Adams began to deploy his photographs in the cause of wilderness preservation. He was inspired partly by the increasing incursion into Yosemite Valley of commercial development, including a pool hall, bowling alley, golf course, shops, and automobile traffic. He created the limited-edition book ''Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail'' in 1938, as part of the Sierra Club's efforts to secure the designation of
Kings Canyon as a national park. This book and his testimony before Congress played a vital role in the success of that effort, and Congress designated Kings Canyon as a national park in 1940.
In 1935, Adams created many new photographs of the Sierra Nevada; and one of his most famous, ''Clearing Winter Storm,'' depicted the entire
Yosemite Valley
Yosemite Valley ( ; ''Yosemite'', Miwok for "killer") is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Central California. The valley is about long and deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Hal ...
, just as a winter storm abated, leaving a fresh coat of snow. He gathered his recent work and had a solo show at Stieglitz's "An American Place" gallery in New York in 1936. The exhibition proved successful with both the critics and the buying public, and earned Adams strong praise from the revered Stieglitz. The following year, the negative for ''Clearing Winter Storm'' was almost destroyed when the darkroom in Yosemite caught fire. With the help of Edward Weston and
Charis Wilson
Helen Charis Wilson (; May 5, 1914 – November 20, 2009), was an American model and writer, most widely known as a subject of Edward Weston's photographs.
Early life
Charis Wilson was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of Harry Leo ...
(Weston's future wife), Adams put out the fire, but thousands of negatives, including hundreds that had never been printed, were lost.
Desert Southwest
In 1937, Adams, O'Keeffe, and friends organized a month-long camping trip in Arizona, with Orville Cox, the head wrangler at
Ghost Ranch
Ghost Ranch is a retreat and education center located close to the village of Abiquiú in Rio Arriba County in north central New Mexico, United States. It was the home and studio of Georgia O'Keeffe, as well as the subject of many of her painti ...
, as their guide. Both artists created new work during this trip. Adams made a candid portrait of O'Keeffe with Cox on the rim of
Canyon de Chelly
Canyon de Chelly National Monument ( ) was established on April 1, 1931, as a unit of the National Park Service. Located in northeastern Arizona, it is within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation and lies in the Four Corners region. Reflecting ...
. Adams once remarked, "Some of my best photographs have been made in and on the rim of
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
canyon."
Their works set in the desert Southwest are often published and exhibited together.
During the rest of the 1930s, Adams took on many commercial assignments to supplement the income from the struggling Best's Studio. He depended on such assignments financially until the 1970s. Some of his clients included Kodak, ''Fortune'' magazine, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, AT&T, and the American Trust Company. He photographed
Timothy L. Pflueger's new Patent Leather Bar for the
St. Francis Hotel
The Westin St. Francis, formerly known as St. Francis Hotel, is a hotel located on Powell and Geary Streets on Union Square, San Francisco, California. The two 12-story south wings of the hotel were built in 1904, and the double-width north wing ...
in 1939. The same year, he was named an editor of ''
U.S. Camera & Travel'', the most popular photography magazine at that time.
1940s
![Ansel Adams - Personnel File Photograph - NARA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Ansel_Adams_-_Personnel_File_Photograph_-_NARA.jpg)
In 1940, Adams created ''A Pageant of Photography'', the largest and most important photography show in the West to date, attended by millions of visitors. With his wife, Adams completed a children's book and the very successful ''Illustrated Guide to Yosemite Valley'' during 1940 and 1941. He also taught photography by giving workshops in Detroit. Adams also began his first serious stint of teaching, which included the training of military photographers, in 1941 at the Art Center School of Los Angeles, now known as the
Art Center College of Design
Art Center College of Design (stylized as ArtCenter College of Design) is a private art college in Pasadena, California.
History
ArtCenter College of Design was founded in 1930 in downtown Los Angeles as the Art Center School.
In 1935, Fred ...
.
Mural Project
In 1941, Adams contracted with the
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...
to make photographs of National Parks, Indian reservations, and other locations managed by the department, for use as mural-sized prints to decorate the department's new building. The contract was for 180 days. Adams set off on a road trip with his friend Cedric and his son Michael, intending to combine work on the "Mural Project" with commissions for the U.S. Potash Company and Standard Oil, with some days reserved for personal work.
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-T02.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-J02.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-E09.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AAB-02.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-P05.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-M17.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-H03.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-G03.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-Q04.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-N04.jpg
File:Photograph of Old Faithful Geyser Erupting in Yellowstone National Park - NARA - 519994.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-W15.jpg
File:Ansel Adams - National Archives 79-AA-Q01 restored.jpg
''Moonrise''
While in New Mexico for the project, Adams photographed a scene of the Moon rising above a modest village with snow-covered mountains in the background, under a dominating black sky. The photograph is one of his most famous and is named ''
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico
''Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico'' is a black-and-white photograph taken by Ansel Adams, late in the afternoon on November 1, 1941, from a shoulder of highway US 84 / US 285 in the unincorporated community of Hernandez, New Me ...
''. Adams's description in his later books of how it was made probably enhanced the photograph's fame: the light on the crosses in the foreground was rapidly fading, and he could not find his exposure meter; however, he remembered the
luminance of the Moon and used it to calculate the proper exposure. Adams's earlier account was less dramatic, stating simply that the photograph was made after sunset, with exposure determined using his Weston Master meter.
However the exposure was actually determined, the foreground was underexposed, the highlights in the clouds were quite dense, and the negative proved difficult to print. The initial publication of ''Moonrise'' was in ''U.S. Camera 1943'' annual, after being selected by the "photo judge" for ''U.S. Camera'',
Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
. This gave ''Moonrise'' an audience before its first formal exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1944.
Over nearly 40 years, Adams re-interpreted the image, his most popular by far, using the latest darkroom equipment at his disposal, making over 1,369 unique prints, mostly in 16" by 20" format. Many of the prints were made during the 1970s, with their sale finally giving Adams financial independence from commercial projects. The total value of these original prints exceeds $25,000,000; the highest price paid for a single print of ''Moonrise'' reached $609,600 at a 2006 Sotheby's auction in New York.
The Mural Project ended on June 30, 1942; and because of the World War, the murals were never created. Adams sent a total of 225 small prints to the DOI, but held on to the 229 negatives. These include many famous images such as ''
The Tetons and the Snake River''. Although they were legally the property of the U.S. Government, he knew that the National Archives did not take proper care of photographic material, and used various subterfuges to evade queries.
The ownership of one image in particular has attracted interest: ''Moonrise''. Although Adams kept meticulous records of his travel and expenses, he was less disciplined about recording the dates of his images, and he neglected to note the date of ''Moonrise''. But the position of the Moon allowed the image to be eventually dated from astronomical calculations, and in 1991 Dennis di Cicco of ''
Sky & Telescope
''Sky & Telescope'' (''S&T'') is a monthly American magazine covering all aspects of amateur astronomy, including the following:
*current events in astronomy and space exploration;
*events in the amateur astronomy community;
*reviews of astronomic ...
'' determined that ''Moonrise'' was made on November 1, 1941. Since this was a day for which he had not billed the department, the image belonged to Adams.
World War II
![Ansel Adams - Farm workers and Mt](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Ansel_Adams_-_Farm_workers_and_Mt._Williamson.jpg)
When Edward Steichen formed his
Naval Aviation Photographic Unit
The Naval Aviation Photographic UnitFaram, Mark D. (2009), ''Faces of War: The Untold Story of Edward Steichen's WWII Photographers,'' Berkeley Caliber, New York, New York, was a group of War photography, military photographers in the United Stat ...
in early 1942, he wanted Adams to be a member, to build and direct a state-of-the-art darkroom and laboratory in Washington, D.C. Around February 1942, Steichen asked Adams to join him in the navy. Adams agreed, but with two conditions: He wanted to be commissioned as an officer, and he would not be available until July 1. Steichen, who wanted the team assembled as quickly as possible, passed on Adams and had his other photographers ready by early April.
Adams was distressed by the
Japanese American internment that occurred after the
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the R ...
attack. He requested permission to visit the Manzanar War Relocation Center in the
Owens Valley
Owens Valley ( Numic: ''Payahǖǖnadǖ'', meaning "place of flowing water") is an arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States. It is located to the east of the Sierra Nevada, west of the White Mountains and Iny ...
, at the base of
Mount Williamson
Mount Williamson, at an elevation of , is the second-highest mountain in both the Sierra Nevada range and the state of California, and the sixth-highest peak in the contiguous United States.
Geography
Williamson stands in the John Muir Wi ...
. The resulting photo-essay first appeared in a Museum of Modern Art exhibit, and later was published as ''
Born Free and Equal
''Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese-Americans'' is a book by Ansel Adams containing photographs from his 1943–1944 visit to the internment camp then named Manzanar War Relocation Center in Owens Valley, Inyo County, California. ...
: The Story of Loyal Japanese-Americans''. Upon its release, "
he book
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
was met with some distressing resistance and was rejected by many as disloyal." This work was a significant departure, stylistically and philosophically, from the work for which Adams is generally known. He also contributed to the war effort by doing many photographic assignments for the military, including making prints of secret Japanese installations in the Aleutians.
In 1943, Adams had a camera platform mounted on his station wagon, to afford him a better vantage point over the immediate foreground and a better angle for expansive backgrounds. Most of his landscapes from that time forward were made from the roof of his car rather than from summits reached by rugged hiking, as in his earlier days.
Adams was the recipient of three
Guggenheim Fellowships during his career, the first being awarded in 1946 to photograph every national park. At that time, there were 28 national parks, and Adams photographed 27 of them, missing only
Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park is an American national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east ...
in Florida. This series of photographs produced memorable images of
Old Faithful
Old Faithful is a cone geyser in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, United States. It was named in 1870 during the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition and was the first geyser in the park to be named. It is a highly predictable geotherm ...
Geyser,
Grand Teton
Grand Teton is the highest mountain in Grand Teton National Park, in Northwest Wyoming, and a classic destination in American mountaineering.
Geography
Grand Teton, at , is the highest point of the Teton Range, and the second highest peak in t ...
, and
Mount McKinley
Denali (; also known as Mount McKinley, its former official name) is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. With a topographic prominence of and a topographic isolation of , Denali is the thir ...
.
In 1945, Adams was asked to form the first fine art photography department at the
California School of Fine Arts
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...
. Adams invited
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange' ...
, Imogen Cunningham, and Edward Weston to be guest lecturers, and
Minor White to be the principal instructor. The photography department produced numerous notable photographers, including
Philip Hyde,
Benjamen Chinn
Benjamen Chinn (April 30, 1921 – April 25, 2009) was an American photographer known especially for his black and white images of Chinatown, San Francisco and of Paris, France in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Biography
Born in San Francisco's ...
, and
Bill Heick.
1950s
In 1952 Adams was one of the founders of the magazine ''Aperture'', which was intended as a serious journal of photography, displaying its best practitioners and newest innovations. He was also a contributor to ''
Arizona Highways
''Arizona Highways'' is a magazine that contains travelogues and artistic photographs related to the U.S. state of Arizona. It is published monthly in Phoenix by a unit of the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT).
Background
The m ...
'', a photo-rich travel magazine. His article on ''
Mission San Xavier del Bac
Mission San Xavier del Bac ( es, La Misión de San Xavier del Bac) is a historic Spanish Catholic mission located about south of downtown Tucson, Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham Nation San Xavier Indian Reservation. The mission was founded in 16 ...
'', with text by longtime friend
Nancy Newhall
Nancy Wynne Newhall (May 9, 1908 – July 7, 1974) was an American photography critic. She is best known for writing the text to accompany photographs by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, but was also a widely published writer on photography, conse ...
, was enlarged into a book published in 1954. This was the first of many collaborations with her.
In June 1955, Adams began his annual workshops at Yosemite. They continued to 1981, attracting thousands of students. He continued with commercial assignments for another twenty years, and became a consultant, with a monthly retainer, for
Polaroid Corporation
Polaroid is an American company best known for its instant film and cameras. The company was founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land, to exploit the use of its Polaroid polarizing polymer. Land ran the company until 1981. Its peak employment was 21,0 ...
, which was founded by good friend
Edwin Land
Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI (May 7, 1909 – March 1, 1991) was an Russian-American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, ...
. He made thousands of photographs with Polaroid products, ''El Capitan, Winter, Sunrise'' (1968) being the one he considered most memorable. During the final twenty years of his life, the 6x6 cm medium format
Hasselblad
Victor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium format cameras, photographic equipment and image scanners based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company originally became known for its classic analog medium-format cameras that used a waist ...
was his camera of choice, with ''Moon and Half Dome'' (1960) being his favorite photograph made with that brand of camera.
From 1957 until 1962,
Geraldine "Gerry" Sharpe served as his photography assistant, and they often took photos of the same locations.
Adams published his fourth portfolio, ''What Majestic Word'', in 1963, and dedicated it to the memory of his Sierra Club friend
Russell Varian
Russell may refer to:
People
* Russell (given name)
* Russell (surname)
* Lady Russell (disambiguation)
* Lord Russell (disambiguation)
Places Australia
*Russell, Australian Capital Territory
*Russell Island, Queensland (disambiguation)
**Ru ...
, who was a co-inventor of the
klystron
A klystron is a specialized linear-beam vacuum tube, invented in 1937 by American electrical engineers Russell and Sigurd Varian,Pond, Norman H. "The Tube Guys". Russ Cochran, 2008 p.31-40 which is used as an amplifier for high radio frequen ...
and who had died in 1959. The title was taken from the poem "Sand Dunes", by
John Varian, Russell's father, and the fifteen photographs were accompanied by the writings of both John and Russell Varian. Russell's widow, Dorothy, wrote the preface, and explained that the photographs were selected to serve as interpretations of the character of Russell Varian.
Later career
By the 1960s, Adams had developed
gout
Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of a red, tender, hot and swollen joint, caused by deposition of monosodium urate monohydrate crystals. Pain typically comes on rapidly, reaching maximal intens ...
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
Clark Kerr (May 17, 1911 – December 1, 2003) was an American professor of economics and academic administrator. He was the first chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and twelfth president of the University of California.
B ...
, 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
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
.
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
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...
commissioned Adams to make the first official photographic portrait of a U.S. president.
Death and legacy
Adams died from cardiovascular disease on April 22, 1984, in the intensive-care unit at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula in Monterey, California, at age 82. He was surrounded by his wife, children Michael and Anne, and five grandchildren. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered on the
Half Dome
Half Dome is a granite dome at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, California. It is a well-known rock formation in the park, named for its distinct shape. One side is a sheer face while the other three sides are smoo ...
at
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ...
.
Publishing rights for most of Adams's photographs are handled by the trustees of The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. An archive of Adams's work is located at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Numerous works by the artist have been sold at auction, including a mural-sized print of ''
Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park'', which sold at
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...
New York in June 2010 for $722,500, then the highest price ever paid for an original Ansel Adams photograph.
[Ansel Adams print sells for record $722K US, CBC, 22 June 2010](_blank)
/ref> This price was surpassed by another mural-sized print of one of his photographs, '' The Tetons and the Snake River'', sold for $988,000 at Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...
New York, on 14 December 2020.
John Szarkowski
Thaddeus John Szarkowski (December 18, 1925 – July 7, 2007) was an American photographer, curator, historian, and critic. From 1962 to 1991 Szarkowski was the director of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Early life and ca ...
states in the introduction to ''Ansel Adams: Classic Images'' (1985, p. 5), "The love that Americans poured out for the work and person of Ansel Adams during his old age, and that they have continued to express with undiminished enthusiasm since his death, is an extraordinary phenomenon, perhaps even unparalleled in our country's response to a visual artist."
Contributions and influence
Landscapes of the American West
Romantic landscape artists Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was no ...
and Thomas Moran
Thomas Moran (February 12, 1837 – August 25, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family, wife Mary Nimmo Moran and daughter Ruth too ...
portrayed the Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...
and Yosemite during the 19th century, followed by photographers Carleton Watkins
Carleton E. Watkins (1829–1916) was an American photographer of the 19th century. Born in New York, he moved to California and quickly became interested in photography. He focused mainly on landscape photography, and Yosemite Valley was a ...
, Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge (; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first ...
, and George Fiske
George Fiske (October 22, 1835 – October 21, 1918) was an American landscape photographer.
Biography
Fiske was born on October 22, 1835, in Amherst, New Hampshire. He moved west with his brother to San Francisco. He apprenticed under Char ...
. Adams's work is distinguished from theirs by his interest in the transient and ephemeral. He photographed at varying times of the day and of the year, capturing the landscape's changing light and atmosphere.
Art critic John Szarkowski wrote, "Ansel Adams attuned himself more precisely than any photographer before him to a visual understanding of the specific quality of the light that fell on a specific place at a specific moment. For Adams the natural landscape is not a fixed and solid sculpture but an insubstantial image, as transient as the light that continually redefines it. This sensibility to the specificity of light was the motive that forced Adams to develop his legendary photographic technique."
The creation of Adams's grand, highly detailed images was driven by his interest in the natural environment. With increasing environmental degradation in the West during the 20th century, his photos show a commitment to conservation. His black-and-white photographs were not just documentation, but reflected a sublime experience of nature as a spiritual place.
In 1955, Edward Steichen selected Adams's ''Mount Williamson'' for the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition ''The Family of Man
''The Family of Man'' was an ambitious exhibition of 503 photography, photographs from 68 countries curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) Department of Photography. According to Steichen, ...
'', which was seen by nine million visitors. At , his was the largest print in the exhibition, presented floor-to-ceiling in a prominent position as the backdrop to the section "Relationships", as a reminder of the essential reliance of humanity on the soil. However, despite its striking and prominent display, Adams expressed displeasure at the "gross" enlargement and "poor" quality of the print.
Group f/64
In 1932, Adams helped form the anti‐pictorialist Group f/64, a loose and relatively short-lived association of like-minded "straight" or "pure" photographers on the West Coast whose members included Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham. The modernist group favored sharp focus—f/64 being a very small aperture setting that gives great depth of field on large-format view cameras—contact printing, precisely exposed images of natural forms and found objects, and the use of the entire tonal range of a photograph.
Adams wrote the group's manifesto for their exhibition at the De Young Museum
The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the California Pala ...
:
The f/64 school met with opposition from the pictorialists, particularly William Mortensen
William Herbert Mortensen (January 27, 1897 – August 12, 1965) was an American glamour photographer, primarily known for his Hollywood portraits in the 1920s–1940s in the Pictorialist style.
Early life
Mortensen was born on January 27, 1897, ...
, who called their work "hard and brittle". Adams disliked the work of Mortensen and disliked him personally, referring to him as the "Anti-Christ". The purists were friends with prominent historians, and their influence led to the exclusion of Mortensen from histories of photography.
Adams later developed this purist approach into the Zone System.
The Zone System
While Adams and portrait photographer Fred Archer were teaching at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, around 1939–1940, they developed the Zone System for managing the photographic process, which was based on sensitometry
Sensitometry is the scientific study of light-sensitive materials, especially photographic film. The study has its origins in the work by Ferdinand Hurter and Vero Charles Driffield (circa 1876) with early black-and-white emulsions. They determin ...
, the study of the light-sensitivity of photographic materials and the relationship between exposure time and the resulting density on a negative. The Zone System provides a calibrated scale of brightness, from Zone 0 (black) through shades of gray to Zone X (white). The photographer can take light readings of key elements in a scene and use the Zone System to determine how the film must be exposed, developed, and printed to achieve the desired brightness or darkness in the final image. Although it originated for black-and-white sheet film, the Zone System can be applied to images captured on roll film, both black-and-white and color, negative and reversal, and to digital photography.
Photography department at
In 1940, with trustee David H. McAlpin and curator Beaumont Newhall
Beaumont Newhall (June 22, 1908 – February 26, 1993) was an American curator, art historian, writer, photographer, and the second director of the George Eastman Museum. His book ''The History of Photography'' remains one of the most signific ...
, Adams helped establish the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. was the first major American art museum to establish a photography department. Adams acted as McAlpin and Newhall's primary advisor; Peter Galassi
Peter Johnston Galassi (born April 18, 1951) is an American writer, curator, and art historian working in the field of photography. His principal fields are photography and nineteenth-century French art.
Education
Galassi graduated from Phillip ...
, the chief curator of the department in later years, said "Adams's dedication and boundless energy were vital to the creation of the department and to its programs in its early years." For those who had sought institutional recognition for photography as art, the founding of the department was an important moment, marking the medium's recognition as a subject equal to painting and sculpture.
On December 31, 1940, the department opened its first exhibition, ''Sixty Photographs: A Survey of Camera Esthetics'', which resembled large survey exhibitions that Adams and Newhall had previously mounted independently. The exhibition took aesthetic quality as a guiding principle, a philosophy that ran counter to that of many writers and critics, who argued that the medium's more vernacular use as a means of communication should be more fully represented. Photographer Ralph Steiner
Ralph Steiner (February 8, 1899 – July 13, 1986) was an American photographer, pioneer documentarian and a key figure among avant-garde filmmakers in the 1930s.
Photographer
Born in Cleveland, Steiner studied chemistry at Dartmouth, but in ...
, writing for '' PM'', remarked "on the whole it oMAseems to regard photography as soft music at high tea rather than as a jazz at a beefsteak supper." Tom Maloney, publisher of ''U.S. Camera'', wrote that the exhibition was "very choice, very pristine, very small, very ultra." According to Newhall, the exhibition was meant to showcase artistic excellence and "not to define but to suggest the possibilities of photographic vision."
Environmental protection
In his autobiography, Adams expressed his concern about Americans' loss of connection to nature in the course of industrialization and the exploitation of the land's natural resources. He stated, "We all know the tragedy of the dustbowls, the cruel unforgivable erosions of the soil, the depletion of fish or game, and the shrinking of the noble forests. And we know that such catastrophes shrivel the spirit of the people... The wilderness is pushed back, man is everywhere. Solitude, so vital to the individual man, is almost nowhere."
Awards and honors
Adams received a number of awards during his lifetime and posthumously, and several awards and places have been named in his honor.
For his photography, Adams received an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 1976 and the Hasselblad Award
The Hasselblad Award (in full: Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography) is an award granted to "a photographer recognized for major achievements".
History
The award—and the Hasselblad Foundation—was set up from the estate ...
in 1981. Two of his photographs, ''The Tetons and the Snake River'' and a view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Baker Beach, were among the 115 images recorded on the Voyager Golden Record
The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for ...
aboard the Voyager spacecraft. These images were selected to convey information about humans, plants and animals, and geological features of the Earth to a possibly alien civilization.
For his conservation efforts, Adams received the Sierra Club John Muir Award : ''For similarly named awards, see John Muir Award (disambiguation)''
The Sierra Club John Muir Award was awarded annually by the Sierra Club. It was the club's highest award. According to the Sierra Club, "it honors a distinguished record of l ...
in 1963. In 1968, he was awarded the Conservation Service Award, the highest award of the Department of the Interior. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...
awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, for "his efforts to preserve this country's wild and scenic areas, both on film and on earth. Drawn to the beauty of nature's monuments, he is regarded by environmentalists as a national institution."
Adams received an honorary '' artium doctor'' degree from Harvard University and an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Yale University. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 1966. In 2007, he was inducted into the California Hall of Fame by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver.
The Sierra Club's Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography was established in 1971, and the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation was established in 1980 by The Wilderness Society, which also has a large permanent gallery of his work on display at its Washington, D.C. headquarters. The Minarets Wilderness in the Inyo National Forest
Inyo National Forest is a United States National Forest covering parts of the eastern Sierra Nevada of California and the White Mountains of California and Nevada. The forest hosts several superlatives, including Mount Whitney, the highest po ...
and a peak therein were renamed the Ansel Adams Wilderness
The Ansel Adams Wilderness is a wilderness area in the Sierra Nevada of California, United States. The wilderness spans ; 33.9% of the territory lies in the Inyo National Forest, 65.8% is in the Sierra National Forest, and the remaining 0.3% cove ...
and Mount Ansel Adams
Mount Ansel Adams is a peak in the Sierra Nevada of California. At an elevation of 11,766 ft (3586 m). the summit is in Yosemite National Park near the park's eastern boundary. It lies northeast of Foerster Peak and west-southwest of Electra P ...
, respectively, in 1985.
In 1984 Adams was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame
The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Louis, Missouri honors those who have made great contributions to the field of photography.
History
In 1977 the first Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Santa Barbara, California and a ...
.
Photographs
Color images
Adams was known mostly for his boldly printed, large-format black-and-white images, but he also worked extensively with color. However, he preferred black-and-white photography, which he believed could be manipulated to produce a wide range of bold, expressive tones, and he felt constricted by the rigidity of the color process. Most of his color work was done on assignments, and he did not consider his color work to be important or expressive, even explicitly forbidding any posthumous exploitation of his color work.
Notable photographs
* '' Lodgepole Pines, Lyell Fork of the Merced River'', Yosemite National Park, 1921
* '' Monolith, the Face of Half Dome'', Yosemite National Park, 1927
* ''Rose and Driftwood'', San Francisco, California, 1932
* ''Georgia O'Keeffe and Orville Cox'', Canyon de Chelly National Monument, 1937
* '' Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park'', c. 1937
* ''Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico
''Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico'' is a black-and-white photograph taken by Ansel Adams, late in the afternoon on November 1, 1941, from a shoulder of highway US 84 / US 285 in the unincorporated community of Hernandez, New Me ...
'', 1941
* '' Evening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park'', 1942
* '' The Tetons and the Snake River'', Grand Teton National Park, 1942
* ''Winter Sunrise'', Sierra Nevada, from Lone Pine, California, 1944
* ''Mount Williamson'', Sierra Nevada, from Manzanar, California, 1944
* ''Aspens'', Northern New Mexico, 1958
* ''Moon and Half Dome'', Yosemite National Park, California, 1960
* ''El Capitan'', Winter Sunrise, 1968
Published works
*
*
*
*
* Adams, Ansel (1974). ''Images 1923-1974.'' Boston: New York Graphic Society. ISBN 978-0-8212-0600-3.
*
*
* Adams, Ansel (1979). ''Yosemite and the Range of Light''. Boston: New York Graphic Society. ISBN 978-0-8212-0750-5.
Camera equipment
Most of Adams' best known images were taken with 8x10 and 4x5 view camera
A view camera is a large-format camera in which the lens forms an inverted image on a ground-glass screen directly at the film plane. The image is viewed and then the glass screen is replaced with the film, and thus the film is exposed to exactly ...
s. He also used a variety of other negative formats, from 35mm and medium format roll film through less common formats such as Polaroid type 55
Polaroid Type 55 film is a black-and-white peel-apart Polaroid film that yields both a positive print and a negative image that can be used to create enlargements.
The film speed is given by the manufacturers as 50 ISO, however that applies onl ...
and 7x17 panoramic cameras.
The 1958 documentary "Ansel Adams, Photographer" narrated by Beaumont Newhall
Beaumont Newhall (June 22, 1908 – February 26, 1993) was an American curator, art historian, writer, photographer, and the second director of the George Eastman Museum. His book ''The History of Photography'' remains one of the most signific ...
gives an overview of Ansel's toolkit at the time, with some examples of his camera outfits including:
* 8 x 10 view camera, 20 holders, 4 lenses - 1 Cooke
Cooke is a surname derived from the occupation of cook. Notable people with the surname include:
* Alexander Cooke (died 1614), English actor
* Alfred Tyrone Cooke, of the Indo-Pakistani wars
* Alistair Cooke KBE (1908–2004), British-American j ...
Convertible
A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers.
A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving expe ...
, 1 ten-inch Wide Field Ektar, 1 9-inch Dagor, one 6-3/4-inch Wollensak wide angle.
* 7 x 17 special panorama camera with a Protar 13-1/2-inch lens and five holders.
* 4 x 5 view camera, 6 lenses - 12-inch Collinear, 8-1/2 APO Lantar, 9-1/4 APO Tessar, 4-inch Wide Field Ektar, Dallmeyer London Telephoto
Adams mounted a platform on the roof of his car to allow him to take images with the view cameras from an elevated point of view.
See also
* Environmental protection
Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment by individuals, organizations and governments. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources and the existing natural environment and, where possible, to repair dam ...
* Monochrome photography
Monochrome photography is photography where each position on an image can record and show a different ''amount'' of light, but not a different hue. It includes all forms of black-and-white photography, which produce images containing shades of ...
Explanatory notes
Citations
General and cited references
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Further reading
Biographies
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Photographic books
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Young adult and children's books
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Documentaries
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External links
American Memory – Ansel Adams
"Suffering Under a Great Injustice" Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar From the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress.
Records of the National Park Service – Ansel Adams Photographs
226 high-resolution photographs from National Archives Still Picture Branch.
All Ansel Adams Images Online Center for Creative Photography (CCP)
CCP at the University of Arizona has released a digital catalog of all Adams's images.
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10 Facts About Ansel Adams
(Mental Floss
''Mental Floss'' (stylized as ''mental_floss'') is an online magazine and its related American digital, print, and e-commerce media company focused on millennials. It is owned by Minute Media and based in New York City, United States. mentalfloss ...
)
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''Encyclopædia Britannica''
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