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Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 - April 22, 1984) was
an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white
photographs of the American West.
Adams also wrote many books about photography, including his
trilogy of technical manuals (The Camera, The Negative and The
Print); co-founded Group f/64 with other masters like Edward
Weston, Willard Van Dyke, and Imogen Cunningham; and created, with
Fred Archer, the zone system. The zone system is a technique for
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.
In the 1930s, Adams created a limited-edition book of his own
photography, leading him to believe in a world outside his own
artistic nature. Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail, was part of
the Sierra Club's efforts to secure the designation of Sequoia and
Kings Canyon as national parks. This book and his testimony before
Congress played a vital role in the success of the effort, and
Congress designated the area as a National Park in 1940.
In 1932, Adams had a show at the M. H. de Young Museum In the same
year, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston and Adams created Group
f/64, a step that is based on the love of "straight photography",
or unaltered prints, in contrast to the manipulations of
pictorialism. During World War II 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 requested 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: The Story of loyal Japanese-Americans. 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, 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.
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.
Adams' photograph The Tetons and the Snake River has the
distinction of being one of the 116 images recorded on the Voyager
Golden Record aboard the Voyager spacecraft. These images were
selected to convey to a possible alien civilization information
about humans, plants and animals, and geological features of the
Earth.
Ansel Adams died on April 22, 1984 from heart failure aggravated by
cancer.
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 (3,580 m). peak in the Sierra Nevada, was named for him
in 1985.
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