Intimate Nature: Ansel Adams and the Close View | Center for Creative Photography Intimate Nature: Ansel Adams and the Close View Intimate Nature: Ansel Adams and the Close View Intimate Nature: Ansel Adams and the Close View The photographs in Intimate Nature: Ansel Adams and the Close View represent an under recognized and rarely examined aspect of Ansel Adams's half-century-long career: his study of the intimate details of nature through the close view of his camera. This guide addresses historical, technical, and aesthetic issues central to Adams and to this body of work It explores issues such as the beauty of the natural world, interaction with nature on a direct and human scale. Intimate Nature is drawn exclusively from the Ansel Adams Archive at the Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. The archive contains over 3,000 exhibition prints and a complete research collection of the artist's negatives, correspondence, contact prints, and other original material.

Pine Cone and Eucalyptus Leaves, San Francisco, California 1932 1933 Curator's Overview The long career of Ansel Adams (1902-1984) represents a prolific and rich contribution to American photography including many hundreds of images that continue to profoundly influence the conception and practice of the art of photography. This selection addresses a less popularly recognized and rarely examined aspect of Adams's vision: his preoccupation with photographing the intimate details of nature. In this close-up approach, the form and surface of the natural world's particulars—the anatomy of leaves, the delicacy of a spring blossom, the murky crevice between rocks, the sunlight playing on a wet patch of sand—captivate the photographer and inspire works of strength and power equal to his more celebrated majestic views such as Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, 1944; Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941; or Half Dome, Yosemite Valley, ca. 1956. With this lesser known but equally meaningful body of images, another side of Adams is revealed. Expressed throughout his career, Adams's vision reflects interaction with nature on a direct and human scale.

These works move away from the nineteenth-century example of the idyllic panorama of the American West, where Adams himself photographed, and exhibit a more contemporary application of photography's abilities. Experimenters and modernists, Ansel Adams and his fellow California photographers developed a straight and highly formal, sometimes even abstract, approach to their subjects. Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and others shared Adams's interest in photography's ability to capture nature's most intimate details, those aspects of form and texture, as realized through light and shadow, which parallel actual experience in nature—the appreciation of what is close enough to touch and smell. These elemental, personal interpretations are not offered in contrast to Adams's exalted distant views, but stand as complements—allowing for a truer understanding of the photographer's complete vision of the natural world. Trudy Wilner Stack, Curator ca. 1949 Ansel Adams Musician, teacher, scientist, advocate, conservationist—these are some of the terms that describe the most renowned photographer in American history—Ansel Adams. He grew up in San Francisco where he was born in 1902 and was introduced to the expanse of California's Yosemite Valley while on a family vacation at the age of fourteen.

At this time he was also given a No. 1 Brownie Box camera. These two seemingly small events strongly influenced the course of Adams's life. Fascinated by photography and impressed with the beauty of the Sierra mountains, Adams worked with a photofinisher in commercial processing in San Francisco during the winter and returned to Yosemite every summer. For four years, beginning at age seventeen, he was the custodian of the Sierra Club's LeConte Memorial Building in Yosemite. This introduced him to an arena that became a driving force throughout the rest of his life—the preservation and conservation of wilderness areas and national parks in the United States. Among his many later accomplishments in this field, he served as board member and, ultimately, director of the Sierra Club and as environmental spokesperson for land protection before Congress. He also conducted annual photographic workshops in Yosemite that combined appreciation of the landscape's aesthetic beauty with technical instruction. As a teenager, Adams decided to become a concert pianist, but by 1930, after viewing negatives made by east coast photographer Paul Strand, he chose instead a career in photography. His decision to become a full-time photographer contributed to the formation of a new vision in photography in the West.

Adams, with other California Bay Area photographers—Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, and John Paul Edwards—founded Group f/64 in protest to the sentimental and imitative style prevalent in the long-standing, turn-of-the-century, photographic trend of pictorialism. The name f/64 refers to the smallest lens opening on the camera through which light passes: images photographed at this setting yield sharp focus and fine detail of subject matter. This loose organization of photographers concentrated on exploring what they termed "straight" or pure photography. They emphasized form and texture, rather than soft focus and emotionalism, and translated scale and detail into an organic, sometimes abstract, design. By 1935, Adams published his first book, Making a Photograph, which was enthusiastically received. Six years later, his groundbreaking Zone System was formulated, which introduced a way for the amateur and professional alike to determine and control the exposure and development of prints for maximum visual acuity. Adams's sense of social responsibility and obligation to share knowledge with succeeding generations is evident in his life's work. Over the years, he became well known for the clarity of his instruction and his hands-on workshop approach to the medium.

He influenced generations of photographers through his teaching and publishing. Adams served the field of photography in many capacities: for example, he was a guest lecturer and course instructor at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; founder of the first department of photography at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco; and author of numerous books. He was instrumental in the formation of the museum and research center at the University of Arizona in Tucson, known today as the Center for Creative Photography. Adams's dream was to ensure the preservation and conservation of photographs as well as to make them available for public education purposes. Today, the Ansel Adams Archive at the Center includes his fine prints, correspondence, negatives, study prints, and memorabilia. His technical ability in the darkroom remains unsurpassed. He set the standard for black-and-white printing for the Pacific coast group, and his discriminating taste and meticulously produced prints continue to amaze those who see his original work. His large encompassing landscapes, for which he is best known, are inspired by the archetypal nineteenth-century idealized panorama, which was a typical genre in early painted and photographic depictions of the American West.

Adams was influenced by these examples, but he was also an experimenter and a modernist. His close-up, intense studies of isolated natural objects that capture nature's most intimate details were often made on the same day as his more famous dramatic vistas. Adams advocated the role of photography as a fine art inspiring new ways of seeing and communicating. All art is a vision penetrating the illusions of reality, and photography is one form of this vision and revelation. . . . My approach to photography is based upon my belief in the vigor and values of the world of nature, in aspects of grandeur and minutiae all about us. -Basic Techniques of Photography Adams remained active as a photographer and conservationist until his death in April 1984. The following year, a mountain peak on the southeast boundary of Yosemite National Park was officially named Mount Ansel Adams in his honor. In the same year, as a testament to his public popularity, his autobiography appeared on best-seller lists across the United States. Ansel Adams's view of America, produced in over half a century of imagery, invites us to reexamine our visible world from the most intimate details in nature to the broadest of landscapes. The View Camera Why Choose a View Camera?

The view camera is a large-format camera used by photographers who want to control every step of taking a photograph. Controlling tonal range may be crucial, they may need large negatives to create prints that clearly show even the tiniest detail, or they may want to decide exactly which parts of the picture are in focus. The photographer who uses a view camera devotes a lot of time to taking each photograph. Think about how this is different from using a camera with automatic focus and automatic exposure. Using a View Camera The photographer using a view camera has to handle the film in total darkness. To load the film, the photographer sits in the dark with a stack of film holders and a stack of sheets of film [dark bags with baffles can be used in emergencies]. He or she picks up each sheet of film by its edges, feels the notches that indicate position, inserts the film in the holder, and slides a light-tight cover over the film. After the photograph has been taken, the steps are followed in reverse, again in total darkness, until the exposed film is safe inside a light-tight box or developing tank. In contrast, the film for an automatic camera is already loaded inside a dark cartridge, which can be put in the camera in daylight.

A view camera is not only large in format, it is also heavy. The 8x10-inch camera with lens and tripod, usually carried over the photographer's shoulder, weighs about thirty pounds. The pack with extra film holders and lenses weighs about the same. Photographers—from those small in physical stature such as Edward Weston to Ansel Adams, who was a large man—carry this weight into the field because they want to make photographs that can only be made with a view camera. Every step of taking a picture with a view camera requires the photographer's time and concentration. If he or she is focusing, both the position of the lens and the film holder can be adjusted. Each exposure requires a separate light-meter reading and separate settings for the aperture size and the amount of time the film is exposed to the light. The extra control means the photographer has to think about every procedure. Nothing is automatic about it. Some Famous Artists Who Used View Cameras Ansel Adams, master of the view camera, is revered for the exceptional print quality of his photographs. Using a view camera allowed him to control several aspects of photographing, each one of which contributes to this print quality.

For instance, because he was exposing only one sheet of film at a time, he could use the Zone System to previsualize each photograph and to both take the picture and develop the negative specifically for the way he wanted that image to look. Using the Zone System also allowed Adams to achieve a wide tonal range; very few photographers match the density range—from the whitest white to the darkest black—found in Adams's photographs. As a young man, Adams and several other artists who used view cameras—like Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and Willard VanDyke—formed Group f/64 to declare their dedication to photographic seeing; several of these artists went on to become the most celebrated American photographers of the twentieth century. The group adopted its name from the aperture f/64, which is a very small focal setting available on most view camera lenses.* Using it requires a long exposure and a still subject. If the photographer has perfectly aligned the plane of the lens and the plane of the film holder and focused the image, this long, slow exposure can yield a photograph that has maximum depth of field: the image is in focus from the surface closest to the viewer to the areas as far away as the eye can see.

The ability to focus carefully with a view camera was important to artists like Adams and Weston. They wanted to assure that their principal subject was in sharp focus. This kind of clarity, this sharpness of focus, is most easily seen along the edges of objects. The view camera has a large focusing screen, a ground glass that is slightly larger than the film. In order to see clearly, the photographer has to go back into darkness again. A large dark cloth is slung over the photographer's head and the back of the camera creating a dark space where the subject is seen upside down, glowing brightly, allowing the photographer to focus precisely. The control that the view camera offers attracts artists who have the patience and concentration to use it. Ansel Adams, who knew the places he photographed very well, often set up his camera and waited for the light to fall the way he envisioned or for a storm to move through Yosemite Valley just as he expected. Adams also knew his camera equally well. His most famous photograph Moonrise,Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941, was taken in the heat of the moment. Imagine Adams driving his car, seeing the picture, and pulling to the side of the highway.

Deftly setting up his tripod and camera, he then focused quickly under a dark cloth, prepared his lens and shutter settings, and took the picture in the fading light at the moment the sun was setting and lighting a row of adobe houses and a cemetery in the foreground. Most parts of the view camera can be seen and manipulated. The Parts of a View Camera and How It Is Used A view camera might best be described as a large box with a lens on one end, a place for a film holder on the other end, and a long, accordion-like bellows in between that can be collapsed or expanded to bring the subject into focus. The closer the photographer gets to a small object, the longer the bellows must be extended in order to focus. The view camera gives the photographer great control because both the front standard, which supports the lens, and the rear standard, which supports the film, are moveable and can be adjusted to bring the foreground and background of the subject into sharp focus. These movements can also be used to correct distortion or to distort the subject intentionally. Using the Negative In the Darkroom View cameras require sheet film, as opposed to roll film.

The 4x5-, 5x7-, or 8x10-inch film used in such a camera becomes the negative after the exposed film is developed. The negative is used to create a positive print by passing light through the negative onto photographic paper, which has been coated with a chemical solution containing light-sensitive metallic salts. For most black-and-white photographs, the light-sensitive material is silver. The closer the negative is to the photographic paper, the smaller the enlargement and the greater the resolution, or fineness of detail, in the finished print. In fact, the best resolution achieved through any negative is in a contact print, when the negative is in direct contact with the photographic paper. Such prints are noted for their sharpness, clarity, minute detail, and lack of grain. To enlarge an image beyond the negative size, light passing through the negative must first go through a lens and be projected onto the photographic paper from a distance away. The larger the negative, the less distance is needed to make a particular image size. Imagine an artist using 35mm roll film.

Since the film is only 1/62th of the size of an 8x10-inch sheet of film, the 35mm negative would have to be much farther from the paper to project the same size image, and consequently, some resolution would be lost. At the same time, a contact print made from a 35mm negative is too small to have any significant visual impact. There are, of course, artists who work in the 35mm film format; but their artistic concerns are different from those of artists who choose to use a view camera. In addition, sheet film can be processed in the darkroom one sheet at a time, if desired, allowing for precise use of the Zone System. If the Zone System is used with roll film, one set of calculations must apply to the entire roll, which would dictate that a whole roll be used for subject matter photographed under identical lighting conditions with the same type of previsualized image in mind. * The photographers in Group f /64 did not use view cameras exclusively.

For instance, several of the photographs in the Center for Creative Photography's exhibition Intimate Nature: Ansel Adams and the Close View were taken with a Hasselblad, a medium-format camera that uses 120mm roll film and is known for its high quality lenses (the individual negatives are 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches). Edward Weston used a Graflex, a medium-format camera often used by photojournalists, to take his famous series of nudes of dancer Bertha Wardell. The Zone System Creating a fine print is a process with many steps. The first is producing the best possible negative to print the photograph as the photographer previsualized it. Once mastered, the Zone System allows photographers to consistently control the tonal range in the negative. Formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer in 1939/40, the Zone System is a set of techniques that allows photographers the greatest possible control over the characteristics of black-and-white film. The system works best with sheet film, which can be exposed and developed one piece at a time. This film becomes the negative used in printing the photograph.

Zone-Scale Card Using the Zone System previsualize the subject scene in shades of black and white [using the Zone-Scale Card] take a light meter reading of target zones using a hand-held light meter, and sometimes a gray card as well decide if adjustments need to be made in the exposure to effectively record the amount of light on the film determine if the contrast, or range of values from black to white, will need to be adjusted by varying the development time of the film. A shorter than normal development time decreases contrast; a longer than normal time increases it. analyze the print during the printing process to determine if the tones of the photographic image are aesthetically pleasing as they were previsualized. Definitions development: a chemical process, carried out in the dark, which makes the image exposed on the film visible and permanent in negative form. exposure: the amount of light that falls on the film (which will become the photographic negative). This is regulated by controlling the size of the aperture through which light enters the camera and/or the length of the exposure. gray card: a standardized card, used for measuring light, which corresponds to Zone V, or mid-tone gray. hand-held light meter: a light-measuring device that is separate from the camera.

A spot meter, which covers a one degree angle, is ideal for measuring target zones. previsualization: a mental exercise in which the photographer imagines the subject in terms of the black, white, and grays desired in the final photographic print. spot meter: a type of hand-held meter that allows the photographer to easily measure light falling on very small areas within the subject matter. zones: a specific set of tonal values consisting of pure black, the base white of the black-and-white photographic paper, and eight or nine shades of gray in between [see Zone Scale Card]. When the Zone System is used, the darkest areas of a photographic image are referred to as low values (Zones I — III), the gray areas are called middle values (Zones IV — VI), and the light areas are high values (Zones VII — IX). The zones are always referred to by roman numerals. Suggestions for Discussing and Interpreting the Photographs Photographs are the result of aesthetic, social, political, personal, and cultural influences on the artist. These affect and help direct the construction and content of the image. Through careful analysis of photographs, students will develop and improve observational skills, increase their vocabulary to express responses, and sharpen their interpretive skills.

Initiate Discussion Have students spend a few minutes just looking at a selected work. Ask them to respond to these questions: What do you see? What is it about? How do you know? Ask them to talk about details in the photograph and encourage them to use specific words from their own experience, rather than general terms. Stand in the Photographer's Footsteps Ansel Adams made decisions about composition and content when working, both when clicking the camera's shutter and when printing from the negative in the darkroom. Three of his important considerations were the angle, framing, and light. Select an image and explore these issues with your students: Has Ansel Adams chosen an angle from above the subject, from below, or at eye level? What effect does the angle have on the way you view the subject? How would the photograph have changed if it had been taken from a different angle? Adams framed his subject by determining what the edges or boundaries of the photograph would be. Where in the photograph does the framing draw your attention? Imagine the setting where the photograph was taken and what might be visible outside of the frame. How would a different framing (closer or farther away) affect the viewer's sense of the subject?

In a photograph, light reveals details, creates shadows, and often contributes to the mood or feeling of the work. Ansel Adams worked in natural light and sometimes waited for days to get just the right kind of light in his photographs. Use adjectives to describe the quality of light in his work and discuss what it contributes to the photograph. Conduct a Thorough Visual Analysis Spend at least fifteen minutes looking at and discussing one or more selected images using the Learning to Look at Photographs lesson. Impact Ansel Adams believed our natural environment should be cherished and protected. Do his photographs impact your feelings about the environment? Discuss. 1950 Selected Bibliography On Close-up Nature Photography by Ansel Adams and Others Adams, Ansel. The Camera (The New Ansel Adams Photography Series, Book 1). Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1980. Adams, Ansel and Mary Street Alinder. Ansel Adams: An Autobiography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985. Adams, Ansel and Robert Baker. The Print (New Ansel Adams Photography Series, Book 3). Boston: Little, Brown, 1983. Adams, Ansel and Andrea Gray Stillman.

The American Wilderness. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990. Adams, Ansel, Peter Wright, John Armor, and Cynthia Anderson. The Mural Project: Photography by Ansel Adams. Santa Barbara: Reverie Press, 1989. Alinder, Mary. Ansel Adams: the Eightieth Birthday Retrospective. Monterey: The Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, 1982. Braasch, Gary. Photographing the Patterns of Nature. New York: Amphoto, 1990. Gray, Andrea. Ansel Adams: An American Place, 1936. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, 1982. Newhall, Nancy. Ansel Adams: The Eloquent Light. Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture, 1980. Nuridsany, Claude and Marie Perennou. Photographing Nature. London: Kaye and Ward; New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. Pritzker, Barry. Ansel Adams. New York: Crescent Books, 1991. Schaefer, John Paul. An Ansel Adams Guide: Basic Techniques of Photography.

Boston: Little, Brown, 1992. Wolfe, Art and Martha Hill. The Art of Photographing Nature. New York: Crown, 1993. Ansel Adams | Photography and Biography Contact Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams, a photographer and an environmentalist, famously known for the landscape photography, came to the world in February 20, 1902, in San Francisco, California. He gained fame in this field as a photographer of the American West, and for his black and white photo of a landscape, markedly for the Yosemite National Park. He dished out this field by developing a Zone System with his colleague, Archer, as a tool to figure out the exact exposure and adjustment of the contrast image. The clarity, produced as an outcome, is what exactly his photography shows. His magnificent work of black and white pictures played a pivotal role in the field of photography among the fine arts. His work is kept esteem even today, although a full stop to more of his work came with his death in Monterey, California, on April 22, 1984. Ansel Adams took birth in San Francisco, California.

The country received an iconic figure, as his family migrated from Ireland in the early 70s and made abode in New England. His grandfather discovered the lumbar work best to earn bread and passed it on to his son i.e. Ansel’s father as a family business. However in the later part of life, Adams condemned this particular industry for the exhaust of the redwood forests. The interesting incident of Adams childhood, leaving a mark on his identity was the trauma that accompanied the earthquake in San Francisco, in the year 1906. Due to the trembles of the quake, he got hit on a garden wall and got his nose broken. If a view of his nature as a child, he was known as hyperactive and a cloying child with a few friends. He has a number of school dismissals in his record as a school child owing to his unruly behavior. Besides this he was skillful at playing piano that remained his young age passion. However, later as he went for a trip to Yosemite National Park and began trying on photography. Taking it a step ahead he began showing interest, in learning the darkroom techniques plus attended camera club meetings.

His first benchmark in this particular field with his work and sold out at the Best’s Studio in Yosemite Valley. Ansel Adams was lucky to marry Virginia Best, who was a daughter of the Best’s Studio proprietor, in the year 1928. Receiving the studio in 1935 becoming his work field and continued working in this studio till 1971 and is known as the ‘Ansel Adams Gallery’. His career and reputation, reached the peaks between 1929 and 1942, and the professional victory is a glory of his first portfolio, Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras. This publication displayed the renowned image “Monolith, the Face of Half Dome.” With this Ansel Adams began working more upon the detailed close-ups as well as large forms, from mountains to factories. He spent profitable time with some commendable artists in his field, in New Mexico that includes Alfred Stieglitz , Georgia O’Keeffe and Paul Strand . His keenness to work went on as he began publishing essays and skillful books on photography. Nevertheless, Adams first preference was to guard the wilderness areas, including Yosemite.

He kept capturing the photographs life in the camps for a special photo essay labeled as ‘wartime injustice’. Another remarkable work to his credit is his click to hold a view of the moon rising above a village just a week before the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The image came up as “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico”. Ansel Adams received numerous awards, appreciating his efforts in the field of photography and his work displayed in the museum. His work still is a complete institute for beginners although he is no more to serve the purpose. Ansel Adams Biography - Ansel Adams Childhood, Life and Timeline Miscellaneous Ansel Adams Biography Ansel Adams was an American photographer and a renowned environmentalist. Read this brief biography to know more about his life. Quick Facts 1980 - Presidential Medal of Freedom 1963 - Sierra Club John Muir Award 1981 - Hasselblad Award Image Credit Ansel Adams was an American photographer who is widely known for his modern day representations that are made on calendars, posters, and in books. He is best remembered as a prominent figure in black and white photography. Adams was a great environmentalist too.

The multi-dimensional genius in Adams made him develop the Zone System which determines proper exposure and adjusts the contrast of the final print. Adams was a guiding light in developing the field of photography with his teachings and practices of resolution, clarity and the importance of sharpness in images. Adams was a great lover of large-format cameras which were considered trouble because of their sizes, weights, setup time, and film cost but their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images. Adams is also greatly known for being the founder of Group f/64 which was a group of seven 20th century San Francisco photographers sharing photographic style characterized by sharp-focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western (U.S.) viewpoint. Adamsâ photographs are widely distributed around the world even today. Ansel Adams Childhood Ansel Adams was born on 20 February 1902 in San Francisco, California to parents Charles Hitchcock Adams and Olive Bray Adams who were of an affluent family. Adams got his name from his uncle Ansel Easton. The Adams family originally hailed from New England and migrated from the north of Ireland in the early 18th century.

Adams’ grandfather had set up a prosperous lumber business which his father continued upon but when it was Adams’ time to take up the family business he condemned the idea of cutting down redwood forests and declined to take up the job. In 1903 Adams’ family moved to the Seacliff neighborhood and the new house was set in a beautiful landscape view of the Golden Gate and the Marin Headlands. However disaster arose for the family when San Francisco was ripped apart by the 18 April 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Adams was just 4 years old when he witnessed an aftershock that threw him face down breaking his nose. Doctors stated that he would have a normal nose as he grew up which never happened. Adams frequently fell ill as a child. He did not have too many friends and was an impatient kid who was always curious and interested about nature from a very early age. With the Panic of 1907 (a banking crises that attacked America) and the death of his grandfather Adams’ father ran losses in the family business which led to great financial changes in the family. By 1912 his family had lost their affluent standard of living.

Adams was an inattentive and a restless kid which resulted in him being thrown out of several private schools. He received his further education from his Aunt Mary and father who private tutored him. He was pulled out of school at the age of 15 by his father. Soon Adams resumed his formal education and was enrolled at the Mrs. Kate M. Wilkins Private School from where he graduated from eighth grade on 8 June 1917. Adams shared a warm relation with his father but had an uncomfortable bonding with his mother who disapproved of his photographic interest. Adams learnt piano all by himself at the age of 12. He focused on music in the later years of his youth. Death In September 1983 Adams became confined to the bed for 4 weeks due to a leg surgery to remove a cancer. He died on 22 April 1984.

ANSEL ADAMS TIMELINE Ansel Adams was born on 20 February in San Francisco, California 1903: Adams’ family moved to the Seacliff neighborhood and the new house was set in a beautiful landscape view of the Golden Gate and the Marin Headlands 1906: San Francisco was ripped apart by the 18th April San Francisco earthquake. Adams was just 4 years old when he witnessed an aftershock that threw him face down breaking his nose 1907: Panic of 1907 (a banking crises that attacked America) and the death of his grandfather Adams’ father ran losses in the family business which led to great financial changes in the family 1912: – By this time his family had lost their affluent standard of living 1916: He visited Yosemite National Park for the first time with his family where his father gifted Adams his first camera, a Kodak Brownie box camera with which Adams captured all his moments and landscape views at Yosemite 1917: Adams resumed his formal education and was enrolled at the Mrs. Kate M.

Wilkins Private School from where he graduated from eighth grade on 8 June 1917: Adams paid his second visit to Yosemite. This time he came equipped with better cameras and a tripod 1919: Adams was attacked by the Spanish Flu during the 1918 flu pandemic which made him fall seriously ill and take several months to recover from 1920: Adams decided to make piano as his career. He learnt reading music and playing music quite naturally and by 1920 he made piano his primary occupation 1921: His first photographs got published.

1922: Best's Studio started selling Adams’ Yosemite prints 1920: In the mid 1920s Adams experimented with soft-focus, etching, Bromoil Process, and on certain other photographic techniques of the pictorial photographers, such as Photo-Secession leader Alfred Stieglitz who was known for bringing photography on an equal artistic plane with painting by trying to mimic it 1927: Adams made his first portfolio “Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras” in his very own new style which included his famous image “Monolith, the Face of Half Dome” which he captured with his Korona view camera using glass plates and a dark red filter (to heighten the tonal contrasts) 1927: In April he wrote “My photographs have now reached a stage when they are worthy of the world's critical examination.

I have suddenly come upon a new style which I believe will place my work equal to anything of its kind” reflecting his inner confidence on his photographic excellence 1928 : Ansel Adams married Virginia Best in Best's Studio in Yosemite Valley 1930: Adams’ second portfolio ‘Taos Pueblo’ was published (accompanied by text) by writer Mary Hunter Austin 1930: s He used his photography in creating awareness for wilderness preservation. He was greatly disturbed by the increasing cutting down and de-charming of Yosemite Valley by commercial development, including a pool hall, bowling alley, golf course, shops, and automobile traffic 1930: In the 1930s Adams also did several commercial assignments to supplement the income from the struggling Best's Studio. His clients include names like Kodak, Fortune magazine, Pacific Gas and Electric, AT&T, and the American Trust Company 1931: Adams was able to put up his first solo museum exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution with the help of his friends and Washington connections. This exhibition included 60 prints taken by Adams in the High Sierra 1932: Adams participated in a group show at the M. H.

de Young Museum with Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston and they soon formed Group f/64, which followed "pure or straight photography" over pictorialism (f/64 being a very small aperture setting that gives great depth of field). The group's manifesto stated, “Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form” 1933: Adams opened his very own art and photography gallery in San Francisco 1933: During this time Adams’ first child Michael was born who was followed by Anne, born two years later 1935: He wrote his first instructional book ‘Making a Photograph’.

His efforts in nature and environmental awareness are noteworthy 1935: He took new photos of the Sierra which include one of his most famous photographs, “Clearing Winter Storm” that captured the entire valley just as a winter storm relented, leaving a fresh coat of snow 1936: Adams made a collection of al his recent works and organized a solo show which was named "An American Place" and held at the Stieglitz gallery in New York 1938: - He created a limited-edition book “Sierra NevadaThe John Muir Trail” which was introduced as part of the Sierra Club's efforts to secure the designation of Sequoia and Kings Canyon as national parks 1939: Adams was made the editor of ‘U.S.

Camera’ which was the most popular photography magazine at that time 1940: Ansel organized ‘A Pageant of Photography’ which is regarded as a very important and largest photography show in the West till today which was visited by millions of enthusiasts 1940-1941: – During this time Ansel completed (with the help of his wife) the very successful children’s book, “Illustrated Guide to Yosemite Valley” 1941: Adams started teaching at the Art Center School of Los Angeles, which included the training of military photographers 1941: Adams went on a trip to New Mexico just weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack where he shot his most famous photograph “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico” which was a scene of the Moon rising above a modest village with snow-covered mountains in the background, under a dominating black sky.

The photograph got more famous with Adams’ description in his later books of how it was made 1941: – In September, he went into a contract with the Department of the Interior to use photographs of National Parks, Indian reservations, and other locations into making mural-sized prints for decoration of the Department's new building 1943: Moonrise was first published on ‘U.S. Camera’ 1944: Moonrise had its first formal exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art 1945: Adams was invited to form the first fine art photography department at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) and he asked Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston to be guest lecturers and Minor White to be the lead instructor.

The department produced great many future notable photographers 1946: He received the first of three Guggenheim fellowships to photograph every National Park 1952: Adams co-founded the magazine Aperture, which was quest for a serious journal of photography showcasing its best practitioners and newest innovations 1954: His article on ‘Mission San Xavier del Bac’, with text by longtime friend Nancy Newhall, was enlarged into a book and published 1955: In June, Adams began his annual workshops and also taught thousands of students until 1981 1963: Adams published his fourth portfolio, ‘What Majestic Word’ 1963: He received the Sierra Club John Muir Award 1963: In March 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 1966: He got elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1967: The collection which was titled ‘Fiat Lux’ after the University's motto was published which is currently housed in the Museum of Photography at the University of California,

 Riverside 1968: He was awarded the Conservation Service Award by the Department of Interior 1970: s He spent most of his time curating and re-printing negatives from his vault to supply to art museums and also use in the creation of his departments of photography 1974: Adams brought out one of his major retrospective exhibition at the ‘Metropolitan Museum of Art’ 1980: He received a Presidential Medal of Freedom 1983: In September Adams became confined to the bed for 4 weeks due to a leg surgery to remove a cancer 1984: Ansel Adams | Center for Creative Photography Conditions For Publication Famed American photographer Ansel Adams co-founded the Center for Creative Photography in 1975.

His was one of five inaugural archives, and it remains a cornerstone of the Center’s fine art and archival collections. Adams’s career spans seven decades and a wide range of subject matter, including portraits, still lifes, architecture, and the landscapes for which he is most famous. Viewers often associate his lifelong environmentalism and advocacy for America’s wilderness places with his dramatic, panoramic photographs that celebrate the redemptive potential of the natural world. Many of his best-known images were made in the American West, including a large group of works made in Yosemite Valley. Adams first learned about photography and the Sierra Nevada Mountains as a child, on family vacation. His love for the medium and the place grew in tandem, and after his initial 1916 visit, Adams visited Yosemite annually. Originally working in the Pictorialist style, widely popular in the 1910s and 1920s, Adams encountered Paul Strand’s photography in 1930, and rejected his earlier painterly, soft focus style for a new “pure” and sharp focus approach.

In 1932, Adams, Edward and Brett Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, and a handful of other Bay Area photographers came together as Group f/64. They displayed their sharp-focus, modernist style of photography at San Francisco’s DeYoung Museum in an exhibition that stands as a landmark in the history of the medium. In 1941 Adams was invited by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to photograph the National Parks and to create large-scale mural prints for the new Washington D.C. Interior building. Adams was delighted at the opportunity, but funding for the project was withdrawn following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of that year, and the large prints were not made. Adams was so invested in the idea of photographing America’s parklands that he applied for the Guggenheim Fellowship to allow further work. He received the grant funding, and expanded the project, creating a book, a portfolio, and many photographs, a body of work that has remained central to his career.

The Ansel Adams Archive at the Center for Creative Photography includes more than 2,500 fine prints, along with correspondence, interviews, unpublished writings, memorabilia, publications, negatives, transparencies, work prints, photographic equipment, and files documenting his commercial projects, exhibitions, affiliation with the Sierra Club and Friends of Photography. The Center provides digital scans and facilitates permissions in collaboration with The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, which holds copyright to all works by Ansel Adams. Website images by this artist Ansel Adams, Pine Cone and Eucalyptus Leaves, San Francisco, California, 1932, ca. 1936, 1933. Ansel Adams Archive © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 84.92.192 Ansel Adams, Leaves, Glacier Bay, Alaska, ca. 1948, ca. 1949. Ansel Adams Archive © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 84.92.216 Ansel Adams, Icicles, Yosemite, 1935, 1950.

Ansel Adams Archive © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 84.91.115 Ansel Adams, Cedar Trees, Winter, Yosemite Valley, California, ca. 1949, ca. 1960, ca. 1955, ca. 1946. Ansel Adams Archive © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 77.65.8 Ansel Adams, Denali and Wonder Lake, Denali National Park, Alaska, 1947, 1948. Ansel Adams Archive/ Purchase © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 78.152.6 Ansel Adams, Jeffrey Pine, Sentinel Dome, Yosemite National Park, California, 1945, 1940. Ansel Adams Archive © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 84.91.156 Ansel Adams, Maynard Dixon, Painter, Tucson, Arizona, ca. 1944. Ansel Adams Archive/ Purchase © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 76.89.22 Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, An American Place, New York, 1938, ca.

1939, 1944, ca. 1937. Ansel Adams Archive © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 77.11.11 Ansel Adams, Maynard Dixon, Painter, Tucson, Arizona, ca. 1945, ca. 1944. Ansel Adams Archive/ Purchase © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 78.152.85 Ansel Adams, At Boulder Dam, 1941. Ansel Adams Archive ©The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 84.90.68 Ansel Adams, Monument Valley, Monuments and Curved Rock, . Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona: Gift of Arizona Highways magazine S2007.44.86 Ansel Adams, Ruins, . Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona: Gift of Arizona Highways magazine S2007.44.67 Ansel Adams, Cemetery Statue and Oil Derricks, Long Beach, California, 1939.

Collection Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona ©The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 76.577.23 Ansel Adams, Oak Tree, Sunset City, Sierra Foothills, California, 1962. Ansel Adams Archive ©The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust Collection, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona Ansel Adams, Oak Tree, Sunset City, Sierra Foothills, California, 1962. Ansel Adams Archive ©The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust Collection, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona Ansel Adams, Sumac, Owens Valley, California, ca.1937. Ansel Adams Archive / Purchase © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 76.83.3 Ansel Adams, Dead Tree, Dog Lake, Yosemite National Park, California, 1933. Ansel Adams Archive © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 84.91.114 Ansel Adams, Foam, Merced River, Yosemite Valley, California, 1951.

Collection Center for Creative Photography ©The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 76.83.38 Ansel Adams, Interchange, Los Angeles Freeway, 1967. Collection Center for Creative Photography ©The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 76.83.41 Ansel Adams, Self-Portrait in Victorian Mirror, Atherton, California, 1936. Collection Center for Creative Photography ©The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 78.152.62 Ansel Adams, Self-Portrait in Victorian Mirror, Atherton, California, 1936. Collection Center for Creative Photography © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust 78.152.62 The Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, is recognized as one of the world's finest academic art museums and study centers for the history of photography. Top 10 Most Famous Photographers of All Time Top 10 Most Famous Photographers of All Time by Morris Pawtucket If you want to take truly memorable and moving photographs, you can learn something by studying the pictures of famous photographers. Some of the most beloved artists are deceased, but some are still delighting us with their photographs.

The list below includes some of the more famous photographers that still impact our lives today. “Wishin I was Ansel Adams” captured by Samantha (Click Image to See More From Samantha) 1. Ansel Adams is probably the most easily recognized name of any photographer. His landscapes are stunning; he achieved an unparalleled level of contrast using creative darkroom work. You can improve your own photos by reading Adams’ own thoughts as he grew older, when he wished that he had kept himself strong enough physically to continue his work. 2. Yousuf Karsh has taken photographs that tell a story, and that are more easily understood than many others. Each of his portraits tells you all about the subject. He felt as though there was a secret hidden behind each woman and man. Whether he captures a gleaming eye or a gesture done totally unconsciously, these are times when humans temporarily lose their masks. Karsh’s portraits communicate with people. 3. Robert Capa has taken many famous war-time photographs. He has covered five wars, even though the name “Robert Capa” was only the name placed to the photos that Endre Friedman took and that were marketed under the “Robert Capa” name.

Friedman felt that if you were not close enough to the subject, then you wouldn’t get a good photograph. He was often in the trenches with soldiers when he took photographs, while most other war photographers took photos from a safe distance. 4. Henri Cartier-Bresson has a style that makes him a natural on any top ten photographer list. His style has undoubtedly influenced photography as much as anyone else’s. He was among the first to use 35mm film, and he usually shot in black and white. We are not graced by more of his work, since he gave up the craft about 30 years before he passed away. It’s sad that there are fewer photographs by Cartier-Bresson to enjoy. 5. Dorothea Lange took photographs during the Great Depression. She took the famous photo of a migrant mother, which is said to be one of the best-known photographs in history. In the 1940s, she also photographed the Japanese internment camps, and these photographs show sad moments in American history. 6. Jerry Uelsman created unique images with composite photographs. Being very talented in the darkroom, he used this skill in his composites.

He never used digital cameras, since he felt that his creative process was more suited to the darkroom. 7. Annie Liebovitz does fine photographic portraits and is most well known for her work with Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone magazine. Her photographs are intimate, and describe the subject. She’s unafraid of falling in love with the people she photographed. 8. Brassaï is the pseudonym for Gyula Halasz, and he was well known for his photographs of ordinary people. He was proof that you don’t have to travel far to find interesting subjects. He used ordinary people for his subjects, and his photos are still captivating. 9. Brian Duffy was a British photographer who shot fashion in the 1960s and 70s. He lost his photographic interest at one time and burned many negatives, but then he began taking photos again a year before he died. 10. Jay Maisel is a famous modern photographer. His photos are simple; he doesn’t use complex lighting or fancy cameras. He often only takes one lens on photo outings, and he enjoys taking photos of shapes and lights that he finds interesting. Of course there are other famous photographers that may be a part of your top 10 list.

There is much to be learned in the art and craft of photography and from those who inspire us most. About the Author: Morris Pawtucket (famousphotographers125 dot com) writes about the famous photographers throughout history who have changed the way we see. Like This Article? Don't Miss The Next One! Join over 100,000 photographers of all experience levels who receive our free photography tips and articles to stay current:

Question: Photographer Ansel Adams was famous for his photographs of what?
Answer: Landscapes