Tag:yosemite national park

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams – Yosemite’s Greatest Salesman

Ansel Adams is considered one of the pioneers of photography and the most important landscape photographer of the 20th century. His love of nature inspired his photography. Adams was also a passionate environmentalist who advocated for more National Parks.

His images made him famous as an American West photographer, particularly those of Yosemite National Park, and he used his work and fame to promote the conservation of wilderness areas.  In addition, his iconic black-and-white images helped to establish photography among the fine arts.

The Early Years

Born in San Francisco on Feb 20, 1902, he was the son of a businessman and grandson of a wealthy timber baron.  At age four, he fell face first into a garden wall during an aftershock of the 1906 earthquake. This resulted in a badly broken nose, and the injury marked him for life. Then, at age five, his family lost their fortune in the financial panic of 1907.

As a naturally shy child with a distinctive broken nose, he struggled to fit in at school.  While never diagnosed, it is widely believed he had Dyslexia and possibly ADHD.  Unsuccessful at the several schools he was sent to, he left school aged twelve.  From then on, he was tutored by his father and aunt.

“Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, Glacier National Park,” Montana, Ansel Adams, Public domain
A photographer emerges

Adams was 12 yrs old when he taught himself to play the piano and read music.  He then began taking lessons and intended to become a concert pianist. Being tutored at home gave him the freedom to enjoy long solitary walks in the still wild areas of the Golden Gate.  He would hike the dunes or walk along Lobos Creek and Bakers Beach daily.  His first visit to Yosemite was in 1916 at age fourteen. Carrying the Kodak Box Brownie, a gift from his parents, he hiked, climbed and explored Yosemite.  In 1919 Adams joined the Sierra Club and spent the next four summers in Yosemite Valley as “keeper” of the club’s lodge.

Ansel Adams, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
“Long’s Peak from North, Rocky Mountain National Park,” Colorado. Ansel Adams public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Yosemite Calls

Adams first published photographs appeared in the Sierra Club Bulletin in 1922. In 1928 Adams married Virginia Best, an aspiring singer and the daughter of landscape painter Harry Best. They had met in 1921 when she was 17 years old and he was 19 through their shared love of music.

Anne, Virginia, and Michael Adams, c. 1941
Anne, Virginia, and Michael, c. 1941

The wedding followed a six-week courtship and a three-day engagement. The couple were avid hikers, and Best was also a member of the Sierra Club. They wed at the base of a 617-foot waterfall called Bridalveil and, naturally, honeymooned at Yosemite. Their first child, Michael, arrived in 1933, followed by Anne in 1935. Unfortunately, Adams missed the birth of both children, being away on photographic assignments at the time.

The Tetons and the Snake River (1942) by Ansel Adams, taken in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming; Ansel Adams, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Teton’ and the Snake River (1942) by Ansel Adams, taken in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming;
 Ansel Adams,’ Public Board’, via Wikimedia Commons
Visualisation

In 1927 Adams published his most famous image  – ‘Monolith, The Face of the Half Dome“. To get the shot he wanted, he climbed a rock cliff known as the ‘Diving Board’, a steep outcrop 3,500 metres above the Yosemite Valley.

When taking his image of the Half Dome – Adams said he had a vision of what he wanted the image to look like. This led to his visualisation technique. First, he composed the picture in his mind and then factored in tonal values. He felt this would lead to near-perfect negatives.

Adams took his first image using a yellow filter, but it wasn’t quite what he wanted. Then, using his last glass plate, he took another image using a red filter. This filter brightened the snow, created a dark sky and caused the rock face to glow in the midday sun.

Ansel Adams, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Apple Orchard, trees with snow on branches in April 1933, Ansel Adams, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Honing his craft

In 1929 he was hired as a photographer for the marketing department of Yosemite Park and Curry Company (the only lodging and dining provider for Yosemite National Park). The company wanted Adams to publish bold, captivating photographs to lure more tourists to Yosemite. To this end, the marketing department coached Adams about the most effective approach to making photographs.

Looking across the forest to mountains and clouds in the Glacier National Park in Montana (1942), from the series “Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments” (compiled 1941 – 1942); Ansel Adams, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Looking across the forest to mountains and clouds in the Glacier National Park in Montana (1942), from the series “Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments” (compiled 1941 – 1942); Ansel Adams, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In a letter, the head of the Yosemite Park and Curry Company instructed Adams that, when taking a winter photograph, he should only shoot trees and houses “heavily ladened with freshly fallen snow.” Likewise, Adams was told to take photographs of only the best-dressed ice skaters using the valley’s ice rink.

The Conversation
Straight Photography

Adams also met and became influenced by Albert. M. Benders, a San Francisco patron of the arts. Benders’ financial support and encouragement transformed Adams. Looking at Adams’s High Sierra photography, he declared they had to do a portfolio of them. Bender made all the arrangements for an edition of 100 portfolios, each 18 images, to be sold for $50 each.  He also ordered ten copies for himself and handed Adams a check for $500 (approximately $8,500 today). Bender then got on the phone, lining up more supporters until half of the edition was pre-sold.

Castle Geyser Cove, Yellowstone National Park (c. 1941) taken in Wyoming; from the series “Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments” (compiled 1941 – 1942); Ansel Adams, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Castle Geyser Cove, Yellowstone National Park (c. 1941) taken “n Wyoming; from the series “Ansel Adams Photographs of “National Parks and Monuments” (compiled 1941 – 1942); Ansel Adams, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

That same year Adams also met photographer Paul Strand.  Strands’ images also had a significant impact on Adams.  Adams turned away from the “pictorial” style of painterly, soft focus images he had previously used and began to concentrate on “straight photography” (also known as ‘pure’ photography). Before long, Adams was straight photography’s most articulate and emphatic champion.

The title ‘straight’ photography is, however, somewhat contradictory. Adams still used manipulation in his techniques and would spend hours in the darkroom dodging and burning his prints.

Bests Studio

By 1934 Adams was elected to the Sierra Club’s board of directors. In 1936 Virginia’s father, Harry Best, suddenly passed. She inherited Best’s Studio in Yosemite and, for 36 years, ran what is now The Ansel Adams Gallery. In 1937, Adams left the Yosemite Park and Curry Company to concentrate on his fine art photography, and the couple moved to Yosemite to take over the management of Bests Studio. Living in Yosemite, Adams now had access to the wilderness on his doorstep during all seasons and times of the day.   He was now firmly established as a Sierra Nevada photographer and a Yosemite defender.

That same year, his Yosemite darkroom caught fire resulting in the loss of 5000 negatives. In 1941 he formulated the ‘zone system’ with Fred Archer, a technique dividing the negative into 11 zones and ranking tones from pure white to pure black plus eleven greys. Adams used this technique in developing negatives.

Commercial Work

While Adams was well known for his landscapes, it wasn’t until the later years that they provided him with a steady income. He often accepted work as a commercial photographer to keep the bills paid and allow for his creative pursuits. For example, in 1969, his Winter Morning in Yosemite Valley was licensed to the Hill Brothers Coffee Company, appearing on their 3lb tins. The tins still fetch up to $1000 when they come up for auction.

Japanese Internment
Portrait of internee Tom Kobayashi at Manzanar War Relocation Center, Owens Valley, California, 1943 / Ansel Adams, Library of Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
Portrait of internee Tom Kobayashi at Manzanar War Relocation Center, Owens Valley, California, 1943 / Ansel AdamsLibrary of Congress, Public Domain

In 1943 Adams collaborated with Dorothea Lange on Japanese Internment images. He photographed the internment camp at Manzanar, one of the many camps the government put up for the detained Japanese-Americans. His pictures depicted the detainees’ discriminatory treatment at the U.S Government’s hands. In 1965, he donated his internment collection of more than 200 photographs to the Library of Congress.

 “The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice, and loss of property, businesses and professions, had overcome the sense of defeat and dispair [sic] by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment … All in all, I think this Manzanar Collection is an important historical document, and I trust it can be put to good use.”

Ansel Adams
Adams, Ansel, photographer. Manzanar from guard tower, summer heat, view SW, Manzanar Relocation Center / photograph by Ansel Adams. California Manzanar, 1943. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002695968/.
Manzanar from the guard tower, summer heat, view SW, Manzanar Relocation Center / photograph by Ansel Adams
. California Manzanar, 1943. Photograph. Library of Congress.
Winter storm, Manzanar Relocation Center, California / photograph by Ansel Adams. California Manzanar, 1943. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002696024/.
Winter storm, Manzanar Relocation Center, California / photograph by Ansel Adams
. California Manzanar, 1943. Library of Congress
Career highlights & Awards
  • Lectured and taught courses at the Museum of Modern Art
  • Assisted in the establishment of the department of photography at the California School of Fine Arts
  • Received three Guggenheim Fellowships
  • Became a consultant for Polaroid
  • Named on President Johnson’s environmental taskforce
  • Founded ‘The Centre for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona
  • “Yosemite and the Range of Light”, a book published which went on to sell over two hundred thousand copies
  • Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter
  • Presented with  Decoration of “Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters”, the highest cultural award given by the French government to a foreigner

Ansel Adams, the technical genius of the camera and avid conservationist, passed away in Community Hospital California at age 82 due to a recurring heart problem. As a result of his tireless work, in 1984, the Ansel Adams Wilderness area of more than 100,000 acres was named after him. In addition, in 1985, Mount Ansel Adams, an 11,760-foot peak in Yosemite, was named after him on the anniversary of his death.

Virginia Best Adams outlived Ansel by 19 years, passing away in January 2000, aged 96.

© Bevlea Ross