Ansel Adams Essay, Research Paper

Ansel Adams had a distinct style that truly defined photography as an art, rather than just nice

photographs. However, some chose to criticize him rather than call him in artist. As Cartier

Bresson wrote in 1952, Landscape in itself was not considered worthy as a subject for

photography, but now in this crisis with the world maybe going to pieces-to photograph a

landscape! Adams was also criticized for the lack of humanity, or any other kind of life for that

matter, in his published photographs, no animals, humans, camp-fire smoke, just nature in all its

beauty. This shows how ignorant people really can be. The fact that he only photographs nature

just makes his work entirely better and people fail to recognize this. In actuality, its this style of

landscape that differs him so greatly from others. Adams himself has admitted that in his

photographs there are always two people, the photographer and the viewer. He can only

determine how he the photographer will react to the pictures and not how the viewer will feel. In

addition, some will say Adams copied the styles of Carleton Watkins and Timothy H. O Sullivan

who began there careers 50-60 years before Adams. They also featured Yosemite as there

primary setting for most of there works. (Clark,3). Adams said He had little knowledge of

there existence at the beginning of his career. I feel it was not possible for Watkins and

O Sullivan to have created anything close to that of Ansel Adams. Thus, due to the fact that

Adams used technology 50-60 years newer then that of Watkins and O Sullivan.

Ansel Adams used technology that was never really found to exists. This is because his

images were unexplainable. They were to detailed and had perfect lighting. His black and white

pictures, seeming so old, yet so advanced in even today s world. Adams was not just interested

in taking the photographs but to educate and enlighten all with the knowledge he has gained over

the years. He invented the zone system for the pre-visualization of images, considered by him to

be the crucial element between artistic interpretation and photographic technology. (Newhall,27).

Adams said my work has no secrets, it just takes a lot of time and effort.