Discover Ansel Adams' legacy of photographs, famous quotes, and the wilderness he preserved through a lifetime of tireless environmentalism and public awareness created through his inspiring prints.
Ansel Adams (1902-1984) is undeniably the most famous American landscape photographer of the twentieth century, best known for his iconic black and white photographs and conservation efforts to protect the wilderness of the American west.
Born and raised in San Francisco as an only child, Adams taught himself to play the piano and read music at the age of twelve. Although he showed strong musical talent, a fateful trip to the Yosemite Valley in 1916 sparked a new interest in nature and photography when he was given a Brownie box camera from his parents on his first visit to the park.
Adams was captivated by the beauty of Yosemite and continually returned to explore the valley and high Sierra in 1917 and 1918, while learning darkroom techniques during the winters working part-time for a photographic finisher in San Francisco.
Dividing his time between photography and music, Ansel needed a piano to practice on while he spent time in Yosemite. He was introduced to landscape painter Harry Best, who owned a studio and living quarters in the valley, as well as an old box piano that he allowed Ansel to use. Harry's daughter Virginia was a talented singer, and Ansel quickly warmed to her through their mutual interests of music and nature. After many years of courting, they finally married in 1928.
Although showing promise as a talented pianist for many years, Ansel eventually gave up the idea of music as a profession. His early exposure to photography and the beauty of Yosemite ultimately shaped the rest of his life.
A New Path
Adams had become a member of the Sierra Club when he was just seventeen years old, which was an environmental organization founded in 1892 by Scottish-American John Muir. With an early mandate dedicated to convincing governments to protect land by creating national parks, Ansel befriended many of the club's leaders who were founders of America's original wilderness conservation initiative.
The Sierra Club was integral in Adams' early success, publishing some of his photographs and writings in their 1922 Bulletin, and granted a solo exhibition of his work at their headquarters in San Francisco in 1928.
Later elected to the board of directors in 1934, he remained a member for another 37 years of active leadership, served as their director, and was named the official photographer of the club's annual 'High Trips' throughout the Sierra Nevada, Canadian Rockies, and other locations.
Adams' talent and markedly strong skillset quickly developed into a very pure approach to photography. He favoured sharp focus from foreground to background in his scenes, using the full range of tonal values resulting in prints with unparalleled clarity and three dimensional depth.
During the early 1930's, Ansel co-founded a small group of like-minded artists called Group f/64 to advocate their modernist photographic style. In part, it was in direct opposition to the artistic pictorialist approach that had dominated photography since the late 1800's, which commonly featured subjects that lacked sharp focus and included the use of colour toning.
Adams was a true innovator with his deep technical understanding of image exposure, developing his negatives, and using brilliant darkroom techniques like the Zone System, which he co-created with Hollywood portrait photographer Fred Archer. The system was a technique that gave photographers a systematic method of determining optimal exposure and development to produce the creative results they desired in their prints.
Although Adams' technical mastery and writings influenced the evolution of photography, perhaps his most important achievement was the key role he played as an advisor in establishing the photography division at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1940's, a first for any major American museum.
These efforts from Adams are widely recognized as being vital in establishing fine art photography's legitimacy as a medium of visual art equal to that of painting or sculpture.
Among the many awards he received during his career, the Presidential Medal of Freedom bestowed upon him by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 exemplified Adams' lifelong advocacy in the preservation and protection of American wilderness.
President Carter read at the ceremony; "At one with the power of the American landscape, and renowned for the patient skill and timeless beauty of his work, photographer Ansel Adams has been visionary in his efforts to preserve this country's wild and scenic areas, both in film and on Earth. Drawn to the beauty of nature's monuments, he is regarded by environmentalists as a monument himself, and by photographers as a national institution. It is through his foresight and fortitude that so much of America has been saved for future Americans." [1]
Famous Ansel Adams Photographs and Quotes
'Monolith, the Face of Half Dome', 1927.
'Monolith, the Face of Half Dome', above, is one of Ansel's most significant photographs, widely considered to be the very first time that Adams purposely utilized specific techniques to manipulate the lighting of the exposure to create a specific effect.
Keenly aware in his mind's eye of how he wished the final print to look before he made the exposure, Adams used a deep-red filter to render the sky a deep black, creating dramatic contrast throughout the image that conveyed his feelings as he stood on the rock ledge 3,500 feet above the valley below.
It was through this very image that Ansel coined the term 'visualization', as it pertained to the photographic process. This was a technique where he would imagine the look of the final print first, then manipulate all aspects of the exposure and printing processes to achieve his vision.
Although visualization is commonplace by modern standards, Adams' skilled processes were groundbreaking in their day and heavily influenced the development of modern day photography.
'Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico', 1941
'Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico' (under copyright, seen here) is a black and white photograph of the rising moon in an ominous black sky over a collection of small buildings, including a church and a cross filled graveyard. Long white clouds and snow-capped mountains are seen in the distance.
Adams came across the scene unintentionally while on a road trip, and quickly pulled over on the side of the highway to capture the spectacle before the sunlight faded. Although he knew the image was special at the time, its popularity grew over the decades with over 1,300 prints made during his lifetime. It has since been deemed Ansel Adams's most popular single photograph.
In December 2020, Sotheby's sold a rare early print of 'Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico' for a record $685,500, the highest ever paid for 'Moonrise'.
'The Tetons - Snake River', 1942
In 1941, the National Park Service wished to obtain a nature themed photographic mural of lands that were protected in National Parks to decorate the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC. A favoured photographer of the time, Ansel Adams was commissioned to complete 'one or more' photographs for the project.
Adams foresaw the positive impact that a photographic survey of the parks could have, and believed a more extensive collection of images could be used in some way. He took it upon himself to embark on two road tours of the western United States in 1941 and 1942 visiting multiple locations, among them the Grand Canyon, Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Glacier national parks.
'The Tetons - Snake River' was photographed in 1942 in Grand Teton National Park as part of the mural project, and for Adams, the view portrayed the experience that visitors could have at the park. Whether its popularity is a result of history or certain traits that it has in common with some of his other famous images, the photograph has become iconic among the public and collectors.
In 2020, a mural sized copy of 'The Tetons - Snake River' sold at Sotheby's for $988,000, the highest sum ever achieved by an Ansel Adams work.
Today, photographers wishing to obtain a similar photograph from the famous Snake River Overlook are often disappointed, as the view has been altered from the growth of trees in the foreground, obscuring the lower portion of the river.
'Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, California', 1944
'Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, California' (under copyright, seen here) is one of a number of photographs that Ansel Adams made from Inspiration Point during his career. Four famous landmarks are visible in Adams' spectacular image, including El Capitan, Bridalveil Falls, Cathedral Rocks, and Half Dome, all cloaked in mystical atmospheric clouds.
A rainstorm that turned to snow was beginning to clear as Adams recorded the photograph with his 8-by-10 view camera on a December winter morning. As he was notoriously poor at keeping records, the actual date of the photograph has been a subject of debate with research indicating a possible range from 1935 to 1944.
Nonetheless, the historic image is one of the most popular of the series, with a mural sized print selling at Sotheby's New York in 2010 for $755,500.
'Mount Williamson, Sierra Nevada, from the Owens Valley, California', 1944
'Mount Williamson, Sierra Nevada, from the Owens Valley, California' (under copyright, seen here) is a dramatic photograph with an unmistakable style that displays similar characteristics to many of Adams' other works. The deeply contrasting black sky, shadows, and ethereal clouds and mist that veil the towering mountain evoke a strong sense of grandeur and mystery to the viewer.
The Owens Valley was a place that was dear and meaningful to Adams, for in the fall of 1943 he deviated from his usual landscape photography and obtained permission to document the Manzanar War Relocation Center and the Japanese-Americans that were confined there for political reasons during World War II.
The majority of his work from Manzanar was portraiture and scenes of daily life in the barracks, many of which were published in a 1944 book with text by Adams entitled 'Born Free and Equal'.
In 1965 when he offered the collection to the Library of Congress, Adams said in a letter, "The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice, and loss of property, businesses and professions, had overcome the sense of defeat and dispair [sic] by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment....All in all, I think this Manzanar Collection is an important historical document, and I trust it can be put to good use." [2]
Ansel Adams Legacy
Ansel Adams' lasting influence on the evolution of photography transcends time for the countless artists whose style continues to be shaped by techniques and philosophies that Adams pioneered decades ago.
His legacy includes a vast portfolio of iconic and enduring photographs spanning over six decades, over four dozen books as an author or artist, and the protection of extensive areas of land as a result of his tireless leadership as an environmentalist.
Ansel also co-founded the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where an archive of many of his personal papers, correspondence, negatives, and prints are stored. The publishing rights for most of his work is managed by The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.
In 1985, one year after Adams passed away at the age of 82, the Minarets Wilderness in the Inyo National Forest in California was renamed the Ansel Adams Wilderness, and an 11,760-foot peak within Yosemite National Park was renamed Mount Ansel Adams in his honour.
The wonder of Yosemite that captured Adams' heart as a youngster lasted throughout the rest of his life, where many of his most memorable images were captured. A finite number of original Ansel Adams prints still exist, many among museums and private collections throughout the world.
It is only fitting that the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite Valley, still owned by Adams family members, continues to display and sell his treasured originals.
Bibliography
1. The American Presidency Project, Jimmy Carter, "Presidential Medal of Freedom Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony". June 9, 1980.
2. Library of Congress, Digital Collections, Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar. "About This Collection."
