Web Work #5 – Ansel Adams (1902 – 1984)

Ansel Adams, famous photographer and environmentalist, was born into a wealthy family in San Francisco, California. Adams was shy and socially awkward. He never really fit in at school and spent much of his time alone. This solitude enabled him find joy in nature. He spent nearly every day hiking around the Golden Gate area.

“If Adams's love of nature was nurtured in the Golden Gate, his life was, in his words, "colored and modulated by the great earth gesture" of the Yosemite Sierra (Adams, Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, p. xiv). He spent substantial time there every year from 1916 until his death. From his first visit, Adams was transfixed and transformed. He began using the Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie his parents had given him. He hiked, climbed, and explored, gaining self-esteem and self-confidence. In 1919 he joined the Sierra Club and spent the first of four summers in Yosemite Valley, as ‘keeper’ of the club's LeConte Memorial Lodge.” (http://www.anseladams.com/)

Although Adams became famous in the 1930s, he struggled financially. He turned to commercial photography and was quite skilled, but the work was not steady and his financial situation remained difficult until late in his life.

Here are a few very different examples of Adams’ wide range of nature photographs:

http://www.anseladams.com/PhotoDetails.asp?ShowDESC=N&ProductCode=1701092103

http://www.anseladams.com/PhotoDetails.asp?ShowDESC=N&ProductCode=1701112101

http://www.anseladams.com/PhotoDetails.asp?ShowDESC=N&ProductCode=1701115104

I appreciate Ansel Adams’ art, but I also respect his lifelong activism for the cause of wilderness and the environment. The stark beauty of Adams’ iconic black and white photographs have become symbols of America’s wilderness. His work even helped persuade President Franklin Roosevelt to establish the King's Canyon National Park. In 1980 Adams was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts to preserve America’s scenic places.