Ansel Adams Essay, Research Paper

Ansel Eastern Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902, the only child of Charles and Olive Adams. He grew up in a house overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and had a strong appreciation for beauty. Charles and Olive Adams gave their son freedom to grow and become whatever his intellect and talents would allow him to be. By 1908 Adams was an enormously curious and gifted child. At twelve, unable to stand the confinement of the classroom, his father decided his formal education was best ended. From that point on he was home-schooled in Greek, the English Classics, algebra and the glories of the ocean, inlets, and rocky beaches that surrounded their home. He also taught himself to play the piano, which he thought was to be his vocation. For that year his father bought him a season pass to the Panama-Pacific Exposition, which he visited nearly everyday, and began to receive private instruction from the tutors.

In 1916 Adams convinced his parents to take a family vacation in Yosemite National Park. During this vacation he was given another gift from his parents, a Kodak box brownie. Ansel immediately developed an enthusiastic interest in both photography and the National Park. Given the position of Custodian of Yosemite?s Leconte Memorial (Joseph Leconte was a distinguished geologist and conservationist.) in 1920, Adams wrote to his father that ??I want you to see what I am trying to do?the representation of material things in the abstract or purely imaginative way.?

After a prolonged and sometimes painful courtship, Ansel Adams and Virginia Best where married in January 1929, and for the first two years of their marriage, Ansel wavered between his two possible career choices, music and photography. After viewing the wonderful work of a new friend, photographer Paul Strand, Adams decided on his course. Happily for all those who would enjoy his work in the future, he would be a professional photographer. In 1931 he began writing a photography column for The Fortnightly, he could no longer keep up with orders for his prints or requests for him to exhibit. In 1932, Adams, with Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Weston, and others who supported pure photography, founded Group f.64, and was part of the renowned Group f.64 exhibition at the M.H de Young Museum, San Francisco. The group was dedicated to the concept of photography that looked like photography, not an imitation of other art forms. Their exhibition excited much comment, a great deal of which was negative, as their more simplistic, highly realistic work was in stark contrast to the overdone photos in vouge at that time.

March 1933 was an important time for Adams. It was then that he met the renowned photographer and patron, Alfred Stieglitz, husband of Georgia O?Keefe, owner of An American Place gallery, and a powerful influence on artists of that time. Steiglitz was favourably impressed with the young photographer and his work, and mounted an exhibition for him in November of 1936. Adams wrote in his 1985 autobiography ?Steiglitz taught me what became my first commandment: ?Art is the affirmation of life.?

Adams also worked in the commercial field, taking pictures of everything from raisin bread to glassware to bathrobes for a Christmas catalogue. It was not his favourite work, but it paid the rent and allowed him to continue his more artistic pursuits. Even his commercial work produced some powerful images (Worker and Turbine, Pacific Electric and Gas, 1939).

In 1943, anxious to contribute in some way to the war effort, Adams sought and received a commission from Ralph Merritt, then director of Manzanar War Relocation Camp, to illustrate and record the lives of the Nisei, American-born citizens or Japanese descent who were interned there. He was tremendously impressed by the spirit of those people as they patiently waited to return to their lives. ?Born Free and Equal?, a compilation of photos of the camp with text written by Adams himself was released in 1944, but was badly received by those who only wanted to see the Japanese as the enemy.

In 1949, Adams received another camera as a gift. Edwin Land, brilliant inventor of the Polaroid Land camera, invited the photographer to become a consultant. Adams was impressed by the camera and by Land?s determination to make photography an artistic form accessible to all. Although other professionals considered the Land camera to be little more than a toy, Adams continued to test the camera and promote its use by providing boxes of film to his associates. Ultimately, he sent over three thousand memos to Polaroid.

Ansel Adams wanted his work to be seen by many, not just the few who could afford to purchase it. He chose three images?Moonrise, Winter Sunrise, and the vertical of Aspens?and arranged for them to be printed as easily affordable posters. This went so well that, in 1984, production began of Ansel Adams calendars (still a favourite over desks and on kitchen walls everywhere).

In 1979, Adams published his very successful book, Yosemite and the Range of Light, which was to sell over two hundred thousand copies. And in 1980, The Ansel Adams Conservation Award was established by the Wilderness Club, and Adams himself named as the first recipient. The citation read ??Ansel Adams- for your deep devotion to preserving America?s wild lands and to caring that future generations know a part of the work as it has been??

On April 22 1984 Ansel Easton Adams died of heart failure aggravated by cancer. Major stories appeared on all primary television networks and on the front page of most newspapers nationwide. A commemorative exhibition and memorial celebration was held in Carmel. California Senators Alan Cranston and Pete Wilson sponsored successful legislation to create an Ansel Adams Wilderness Area of more than 100,000 acres between Yosemite National Park and the John Muir Wilderness Area. After his death he was unanimously elected as an honouree of the International Photography Hall of Fame. In 1985 Mount Ansel Adams, a 11,760-foot peak located at the head of the Lyell Fork of the Merced River on the southeast boundary of Yosemite National Park, was officially named on the first anniversary of his death.

There is no one-way to describe Ansel Adams because he was so effective in everything he did. Husband, Father, Writer, Photographer, Humanitarian, Conservationist, and Renowned Pianist, Adams was celebrated at each, and loved for each as well. Where many artists are not recognized until after their deaths, Adams’s was such an exceptional photographer that the world could not ignore his talents. Long after his death Ansel Adams will never be forgotten.