Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco California on February 20, 1902. He was an only child of Charles and Olive Adams. He trained as a classic pianist, who then started to be interested in photography and forgot about the piano. He became America's most talented and beloved nature and landscape photographer.
Ansel started school but was a poor student and did not like going to school In 1908. his father took him out of school and had him privately tutored In 1915. His father bought his son a year pass to Panama Pacific International Exposition. This Exposition had exhibits on painters, science, machinery, and photography. "It was also the first time that he experienced photography as an art form in three prints exhibited by photographer Edward Weston, who he then later collaborated in the f/64 Group project and became a good friend"(Basil Canon 1).
Ansel then became interested in music, his favorite was the piano. Ansel began to teach his self how to play. He started to like it so much music because very serious to him. After the father started to recognize his son's talent, he started to look for a tutor. When he found one he hired Marie Butler, for his son. Marie taught Ansel for three years. As Ansel was getting good at playing the piano he started to think about becoming a pianist and playing in a concert.
Yosemite was Ansel’s first trip with his family in 1916. While on this trip he started to have interest in photography. He took his first photo on the smallest camera which was called the Kodak Camera which was his first camera to have. As Ansel started to progress as a photographer his life started to become interesting with the love of nature around .With Ansel attempting to committe the magic of Yosemite on film, he demonstrated the beginning of an great talent which was to make him the worlds class photographer". (Basil Canon 2)
Ansel’s parents persuaded him to attend school again. His parent put him in Mrs. Kate Wilkins' private school. He graduated from the eighth grade at Mrs. Wilkins' school in 1917. Since he graduated it showed the end of Ansel's Academic Career. After he finished school he continued to study the piano, and photography in which he found lots of interest in. Ansel started to teach himself the basic principles of photography. He found a job at Fred Dittman, in San Francisco working part-time for a photo finisher. While working there he started to get experience with the dark room. Will Dassonville, was a neighbor to Ansel, he was a technician and manufacturer of photographic papers. “Will Dassonville became an inspiration to Ansel and brought his attention the true extent of photography to which photography could be developed into and art form". (Basil Canon 3)
As years went past Ansel continued his love for photography and continued to teach himself while still pursuing the piano. While teaching his self He became to like in nature and the environment. Ansel took a position at the Sierra Club as a Custodian in 1919. Ansel’s passion about protecting the environment became a life-long member of The Sierra Club.
"The Sierra Club's member was a mix of 750,000 friends and neighbors as well as people from the club. Inspired by nature, people worked together to protect the communities and the planet. The Club is America's oldest, and largest environmental organization. The mission statements that were required were to enjoy and protect the wild places of the earth, They Practiced and promoted the responsibility of the earth's ecosystems and resources, Educated and enrolled in humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and the human environment, and Use lawful means to carry out the objectives". (Basil Canon 4)
During this time, Ansel still was considered to be a pianist. He practiced piano at the Best Studio. This is where he met his wife, Virginia Best in 1921. Virginia was a classical singing student at the time. Best's Studio was a gift shop in Yosemite the shop sold books, carvings, paintings, and photographs. A piano was kept in the shop, so that Ansel could be able to practice. Her father, Harry Best, owned the shop. Virginia and Ansel had common interests such as nature and classical music. On January 2, 1928 they became engaged and were married seven years later.
While living in Yosemite Ansel's love for nature grew. In his photographs he had excellent details like completely; landscapes. One example that I saw this past weekend at the Philadelphia museum of art is the photo of the Cathedral Peak and Lake. This photo was also a gelatin silver print. It was also a black and white photo with a half of the rock showing and with rocky snow around it. It was taken between1902-1980 and it’s a 36.8×49.1 cm photo. To me it had a strong point on what he likes to take picture of. The picture was made of black and white it has an image of tall mountains, forest trees background, lakes, and a rocky areas. The photo looked like it was in a biome of Tundra Snowy Mountain. I believe he took this photo because he was amazed of how landscape pictures looked like or he probably thought that this was something that people like to see and learn.
Ansel Adams led many expeditions in Yosemite for The Sierra Club in the mid 20's he also went on a lot of trips by himself. As mentioned earlier he was in a group of seven that came together and built a gallery called 683 and the reason why it was called 683 is because it was at Willard Van Dykes house this group developed photos of the f/64 and amongst him were Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, Willard Van Dyke, and Edward Weston. But it was organized by Ansel Adams and williard Van Dyke. These group of photographers developed photos of sharp, focused and well framed images. These photographers want to photograph Modernist beauty so that they can show natural forms and found object. As they developed the gallery; they came up with the same idea that Alfred Stieglitz had when he built his gallery 291 in New York on Fifth Avenue in the earlier years. Stieglitz was born in Hoboken New Jersey in 1865 he was an engineer and a modernist photographer. He also came up with a club called “The New York camera club” where he wanted to gather some photographers together to be able to judge. He developed the Camera Club in the 1900 just like the gallery 683. Stieglitz organized the exhibition for Edward Steichen who bought the studio; amongst them were others who participated with this gallery. As they Developed the gallery photographer were on the same level as painters and sculptures.
Ansel loved taking pictures of the mountain area and the Landscape area. He began writing articles for the Sierra Club Bulletin, which he illustrated with his own photos.
He began to experiment a lot more with different types of photography at this time. "He developed a way of producing images looking exactly like charcoal drawings. The images he photographed were popular amongst the pictorial photographers of the time, and were attained by using soft focus negatives and bromide prints". (Callahan 5) The clarity of his later works started to become much sharper that of these early images. Making these kinds of "charcoal drawings" the images began to bore Ansel, and he began focusing on sharper, clearer images. Ansel then became known for his work to have good clarity.
Ansel experimented with taking pictures in different kinds of lights to make the images sharper. He also used many kinds of lenses and filters to get his photos exactly the way he wanted them to look. He would wait for hours so he would have just the right amount of sunlight needed for the perfect photograph. This resulted in many stunning photographs of Yosemite including Monolith, the Face of the Half Dome. This photo was also a gelatin silver print. It was also a black and white photo with a half of the rock showing and with rocky snow around it. It was taken between1902-1980 and it’s a 36.8×49.1 cm photo.
Ansel then found out that he could change his photos by using different printing techniques. He became a member of the Roxeburghe Club, a meeting-place for printers in the San Francisco Bay area. At this Club, Ansel communicated with great printers of the time, and learned a lot of fine printing techniques. Ansel became a carful printer an example of this can be seen in any of his more than 30 books, such as; Taos Pueblo and Making a Photograph.
Ansel developed photographic techniques such as the Zone System, which became standard for modern photographers. The Zone system was “introduced in 1941, being a simple way of explaining sensitometer, a device for measuring photographic equipment's sensitivity to light. He had a method which was to separate the tonal range into ten steps, starting with zone 0 for total black and zone 9 for pure white. This wonderful idea allowed the photographer to measure the contrast and tonal quality by developing the film to these specifications to achieve optimum results in the final print".( Callahan 6) Ansel focused on photography and printing until he died in 1984.
As I was talking with friends, coworkers and family they all say the same about Ansel Adams. That he is one of the best photographers and that he shows us how beautiful and gorgeous nature is or can be. They like how his black and white photos have so much perspective and that you see the sharpness of the photo you can see how much detail the picture has and showing how the lights and darks are well shown.
The reason why I chose Ansel Adam is because he captured my interest with his use of nature, especially in regards with his landscape photos. Ansel Adam's photography uses the natural world around us to relate to the different aspects of everyday life. In all of the photographs, there is a unique way he represents his study of different occurrences we see in everyday life. Also I feel Adams took pictures of landscapes because it showed people thoughts about how or what it like to look at beautiful nature is like. Through taking pictures of the Tundra but of the other things like the one I saw on the museum, it was a photo of waterfall and lots photos about mountains. I think he is an inspirational to his entire photos they are very inspirational and have very good detail. The world that he lives in has things about nature. Ansel Adam didn't take any lesson of photography but he took trips that just inspired him.
One of the things that caught my attention while I was at the Philadelphia Museum was that the way he took pictures of trees and like one of them was a photo of a tree trunk. It shows that trees are living organisms. One of my favorite photos was the Mount Whitney which had a lot of scrambled rocks on top of it. All the photos that he took make him a great artist. You can see what he was trying to do with his photos and see what he wanted to prove the people that look at his photos.
Ansel invented different types of techniques for photographing and printing. Which are still used by photographers today. His amazing landscape photographs can be seen or viewed in museums and books actually everywhere. Ansel Adams photos are at least liked everywhere or by everyone. He is considered to be one of America's most beloved and talented photographers.
Biblography
Ansel Adams by Basil Cannon
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/ansel/index.html
http://sierraclub.org/inside/
Ansel Adams in Color edited by Harry M. Callahan
http://www.hctc.commnet.edu/ar