Ansel Adams

4 Pages 1075 Words

Journals: “Ansel Adams and the Photographers of the American West”
By Eva Weber and Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams

This chapter explains about Ansel Adams life and accomplishments. Some interesting things I found out, was he wanted to be a musician instead of a photographer. Early in Ansel’s life he became very ill with influenza and while sick, he read guide books of Yosemite National Park and entranced by the Natural beauty he persuaded his family to visit there allowing him to make his first photo with a Kodak boy camera. Yosemite became a vital part of Ansel’s life from there on out. Ansel became a conservationist a well-noted photographer and a teacher in his lifetime. His early photography was just a source of additional income as a picture realist photographer characterized by soft focus images that was enhanced further by darkroom manipulation. He soon became a self-conscious modernist devoted to photography. He designed the zone system to expose the previsualized result. After such success in photography he suffered a physical and mental breakdown. That put a halt to his work for a while, but he was commissioned to produce another book of mountains photos of the Sierra Nevada. After this book he went back to his goal to become a leading figure in American Artwork. Adams contributed greatly to MOMA, as a photographer, a teacher, and a consultant. Adams also founded the Sam Francisco Art Institute and the University of Arizona’s Photography Center. The amount of prints that Adams produced and sold increased the appreciation of photography by the art institutes.

Views Aesthetic and Spiritual
In the west painting and photography went hand in hand in depicting the beautiful and picturesque landscapes of the west. In the work of many artists the landscape became an allegory for the divine and a revelation of Gods intentions towards humanity. Europeans feel of superiority over the inferior United States cultur...