Ansel Adams


By Claire Kulczyk

In The Beginning..
Ansel Easton Adams was born in 1902 on February 20th, he was the only child of Charles Hitchcock Adams and Olive Bray, a strictly upper-class family. At that time Charles and Olive were living in San Francisco California off of Olive’s fathers fortune, until 1907 when they lost much of their money during the financial panic. As a young child Ansel attended school just as everyone else, until he was 12, when his father decided to take him out of public education and have him tutored privately. At this time young Ansel also began to take piano lessons, which then grew into his original passion of becoming a concert pianist.

Adams’ always enjoyed nature, and living in San francico close to the sand dunes he would often take long walks to admire his surroundings. In 1916 he took his first visit to Yosemite National Park, where he instantly fell inlove with the beauty it held and began to take pictures with his Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie. Three years later he joined the Sierra Club, which was a group dedicated to preserving the natural world's wonders and resources. The Sierra Club quickly became a vital part of Adams’ life.

Career..
Adams’ career as a professional photographer came along with some help from the Sierra Club. His first published photos appeared on the groups 1922 bulliten, and 6 years later the Sierra Club allowed him to hold his very first exhibition in their San Francisco headquarters.



In 1927 something happened that made Adams’ life change drastically. He came into the acquaintance of a man by the name of Albert M. Bender, Bender was an insurance magnate and more importantly patron of arts and artists, soon after their meeting, Bender began the production of Adams’ first portfolio. Bender continued to help and give support to Adams’ so that he would continue his career. In the 1930’s, Adams’ created a book called Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail; this book contained many of his own photographs and was the Sierra Clubs effort to secure the designation of Sequoia and Kings Canyon as national parks. Two years later, Adams met photographer Edward Weston, they became very close to each other and soon after created the Group f/64. Group f/64 was a group of photographers that expressed a comon philosphy, their goal was to produce “the best contemporary photography of the West” They only allowed certain people to join or remain members, although this group was short-lived, they made their mark by grabbing the attention of others through their photographs of the west coast.
In 1941, along with help from Fred Archer, he developed a soon-to-be famous photographic technique called “Zone System”. This was used for determining optimal film exposure and development, it allowed photographers a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. This technique was origionally designed for black and white sheet film, but today has been manipulated to work with roll film, both black & white, colour, and even digital images.
Later on in his career, in 1952, he, along with friend Minor White, were the founders of a photography magazine by the name of ‘Apature’. This magazine was published by a non-for-profit organization devoted to fine art photography. The magazine was forced to close in 1964, untill a former student and close friend of White’s restored it and became its publisher.


Death..
Ansel Adams died April 22 1984. He died of heart failure which was aggrivated by cancer. At the time of his death he left behind his wife, son Michael, Daughter Anne, and 5 grandchildren.
The publishing rights to his photographs are taken care of by The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.
One year after his death, a peak in Sierra Nevada was re-named Mount Ansel Adams in honour of him and his life acheevements.
Closing.
Ansel Adams has contrubuted largly to the History of photography. With his use of light and shadow, and the way he captures natural images, is something all inspiring photographers should keep in mind when trying to succeed in this field of work.