Ansel Adams

           Making Black and White Photography Cool: Ansel Adams

Through history mankind has been replicating images that mean something through paintings or photography. Whether it’s the majestic beauty of a snow covered mountain, or the sad reality of a homeless mother on the street corner giving her starving children the last scraps of spoiled food, images can be a very powerful thing. Photographers have captured the image of war, death, homeless, personal tragedy, joy, excitement, and most any other human emotion. However, with all the famous photographers in the world only one came to mind.

Since I spent most of my youth in Alaska, I grew up having a deep respect and love for nature. I recall having the love for a mountain, the fondness for trees, admiring the beauty of the rainbow, and the respect for the wildlife.  Ansel Adams also had a love of nature; moreover, he captured that respect and love with black and white photography.

Ansel Eston Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902 on Febuary 20. He was a difficult and rebellious student. By the age of 12, his farther stopped trying to make him attend and pulled him out of school. Adams, however, proved to be autodidact and became a gifted, self-taught musician.

In 1916 he got his first camera, Kodak Box Brownie, and began taking photo during a visit to Yosemite Nation Park. In 1917 and 1918 he even worked part time at a photo finishing business. He became employed by Yosemite Nation Park in 1919 as a custodian and led weekly expeditions around the park. He looked at his snap shots of the landscape and his “visual diary”. A 61/2*81/2-inch Korona view camera was then used for his galleries. He spent an afternoon on his most famous piece, Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park.

The more photos, the more he became involved with the park and the land and became a staunch conservationist. From 1934 to 1971 he became the director of the Sierra Club. In 1940 he helped to form the curatorial department devoted to photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

In 1980 Adams was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Ansel Adams died as the most important landscape photographer of the 20th century on April 22, 1984, in Carmel, California