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DAY 3 | FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS |
Ansel Adams (1902–1984)
CAPTURING THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Ansel Easton Adams, artist and activist, was known for his stunning black and white images of Yosemite National Park and the American West. His images captured the wild beauty of natural landscapes with clarity so acute that he has been called one of the most accomplished technical masters of photography. This clarity of detail was produced with the use of a large-format camera and the “zone system,” developed with Fred Archer, which was a way to determine proper exposure and create flawless finished photographic prints with unparalleled depth.
Guayule Field, Manzanar Relocation Center. Photograph by Ansel Adams. Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs LOT 10479-2, no. 3; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Committed to promoting photography as a fine art, Adams was a founding member of Group f/64, which was instrumental in creating the first department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was here he met Nancy Newhall, and collaborated on a number of books and exhibitions, including the Sierra Club’s This Is the American Earth (1960), which was pivotal in inspiring the environmental conservation movement.
A lifelong hiker and explorer, Adams spent a great deal of time in Yosemite. In 1919, he joined the Sierra Club, and was able to combine his love of photography and the pursuit of environmental activism. His photographs were first published in the club’s bulletin and he served on the board of directors for 37 years. Adams endlessly traveled the country in pursuit of natural beauty, and fought for the preservation of park and wilderness areas. After his death in 1984, congress named 200,000 acres near Yosemite the Ansel Adams Wilderness area. —GC