ANSEL ADAMS (1902-1984) ARTIST/ ENVIRONMENTALIST

ANSEL ADAMS

"Moon and Half Dome" (1960) Ansel Adams

"The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park,
Wyoming" (1942). Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams is credited with bringing the magnificent views of the National Parks to millions of Americans, many of whom, earlier in the 20th century had never visited one. His photographs of the mountains, rivers,  lakes, waterfalls and sand dunes of Yellowstone, Yosemite, Denali, Glacier, Mount Rainier, Olympic, North Cascades, Sequoia, Death Valley National Parks and Monuments and others, helped to bring attention to the "national park idea." He travelled and wrote and spoke to environmental groups, students, Park Service leaders and the public and his photographs informed, influenced and inspired ordinary citizens, cabinet officers, newspaper editors, journalists, scholars and Presidents.  In the 1950s and 1960s he was a national figure as an artist and an environmentalist. William Turnage, in "Ansel Adams Our National Parks" stated that in the 1950s and1960s, "he was the only environmental advocate with easy access to the president." 

Adams was first and foremost an artist and a proponent of "straight photography." He was a member of the group known as the "Precisionist Photographers" that included Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham. In 1930 he was a member of the informal "f/64" group that advocated large-format view cameras, small lens aperture and printing by contact rather than enlarging. Adams became famous for his precise and systematic process of photographing.  He was considered a master of the camera and darkroom. He taught at the Art Center School in Los Angeles and he and Fred Archer created what they called the Zone System.

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The Zone System is based on the principles of sensitometry ; the study of light sensitive materials and offers photographers the opportunity to visualize the photographic subject and have more control over the final result.  He considered it an "enabling technique" meant as a "rational and repeatable system" for obtaining the values in the final print  already visualized by the photographer. It could be applied to  black and white and color processes and digital photography.  Adams published many books, including a series of  technical "manuals" The Camera/Book 1, The Negative/Book 2 and The Print/ Book 3 that while somewhat obsolete in the digital era are considered classics by many "traditional" photographers.His images have been popularized in posters and calendars and numerous  art books.  

Adams's photographic work was not limited to images of the national parks. In 1943 he documented the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California and the Japanese Americans interned there during World War II.  He offered his collection of 242 original negatives and 209 prints to the Library of Congress in 1965. Those images can be viewed here:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/index.html

Yosemite National Park was where Adams spent a significant portion of his adult life. He made thousands of images contributing to the documentation of the park system as it existed in the middle of the 20th century. His images helped to create better parks and to protect the existing ones and had the effect of bringing more tourists into the parks as well as new awareness of the importance of protecting the natural environment of the parks. He was elected to the board of directors of the Sierra Club and had a leadership role in the organization until the early 1970s. In the 1930s when many of Adams's friends were turning their attention to social documentary, Adams was criticized for his obsession with "rocks" and his devotion to the aesthetic representation of his subject matter. But the 1930s were critical years in the history of conservation and Adams was bolstered by the knowledge that the photographers of the West, Carlton Watkins and William Henry Jackson each played a role in establishing Yosemite and Yellowstone as state parks in the latter half of the 19th century. He was convinced that his images could be aesthetic and serve social and political purposes. 

Courtesy of the Cedric Wright Family

References

Library of Congress, American Memory. "Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar." Web. 11 April 2013.

Rosenblum, Naomi. "A World History of Photography. 3rd ed. Abbeville Press Publishers. New York. 1997.

Stillman, Andrea G. and William A Turnage, eds. "Ansel Adams, Our National Parks." Little, Brown and Company. Boston. 1992.

Spaulding, Jonathan. "Ansel Adams and The American Landscape. A Biography." University of California Press. Los Angeles. 1995. 

"Zone System" Wikipedia. (n.d.) Web. 11 April 2013.