Ansel Adams

From ArticleWorld

Ansel Adams pioneered the art of landscape photography in the American West, creating such memorable black and white photographs such Monolith, The Face of Half Dome (1927) and the Clearing Winter Storm (1940) and serving as the director of the nation-wide conservation club, the Sierra Club.

Life

Born in San Francisco on February 20. 1942, Ansel Eaton Adams was one of the earliest photographers to specialize in taking black and white photographs of the American West, especially the California Yosemite Valley. As a child, Ansel Adams gained an interest in taking photographs early on, reading books such as In the Heart of the Sierras with photographs by George Fiske. At the tender age of seventeen, Adams joined the Sierra Club, an environmental conservation organization, which he remained a part of all his life. Dedicated to preserving the earth’s natural resources and bringing to light the beauty of areas that he hiked and enjoyed, Ansel Adams created some of the nation’s finest epic photographs. Recipient of numerous awards including three prestigious Guggenheim fellowships, Ansel Adams also started the Aperture Foundation. The inventor of the zone system where photographers can translate light into particular densities which thus gave photographers more control over their finished products, Ansel Adams was also one of the founders of Group f/64, a photographic club. In 1984 an area of the Inyo National Forest was named the Ansel Adams Wilderness in his honor and in the following year, a magnificent mountain peak in the high Sierra mountains was named Mount Ansel Adams, to commemorate the exquisite legacy of Ansel Adams.

Works

The author of numerous books, Ansel Adams is also well known for particular works of art such as: Monolith, The Face of Half Dome (1927), Rose and Driftwood (1932), Clearing Winter Storm (1940), Moonrise over Hernandez, New Mexico (1941), Georgia O’Keefe and Orville Cox at Canyon de Chelly, and Aspens, New Mexico (1958.)

His books include a trilogy of operating manuals: The Camera, The Negative, and The Print (1995), and numerous photographic books including most recently, Ansel Adams: The Spirit of Wild Places (2005), and during his lifetime, This is the American Earth (1960) and Born Free and Equal (1944) to name a few.