Ansel Adams

Biography~

1902- February 20th Ansel is born in San Francisco

1916- Ansel Adams goes on his first trip to Yosemite and takes his photographs using a Kodak brownie camera.

1927- Photographs Monolith, The Face of Half Dome in Yosemite National park using his technique of visualization for the first time.

1928- Marries Virginia Best; first Sierra Club outing as Official Photographer.

1930- Builds a home in San Francisco and chooses photography as his life’s after seeing Paul Stand’s negatives.

1933- His first child, Michael is born and Ansel travels to New York and holds an Exhibit in New York City.

1935- His daughter Anne is born and he publishes Making a photograph

1937- A fire in Ansel’s darkroom destroys about 500 negatives (pictures)

1943-44- Photographs Japanese-American internees at Manzanar War Relocation camp and he exhibits the photos at MOMA and calls the exhibit Born Free and Equal

1953- photographs “The Three Mormon Towns” with Dorthea Lange

1963-67- Opposes the dams threatening the grand canyon with the Sierra Club

1984-Dies on April 22 in Carmel, California

Some books that Ansel published

• The camera
• The Negative
• Photographs of the Southwest
• The print
• Born Free and Equal
• Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail
• The Ansel Adams Guide Book 1
• The Ansel Adams Guide Book 2
• In Color
• The Grand Canyon and the Southwest
• Portfolios
• Yosemite and the Range of Light
• The making of photographs

Awards:
Conservation Service Award
Presidential Medal of Freedom

“A true photograph need not be explained…my photographs are presented here as ends in themselves images of the endless moments of the world”~Ansel Adams

Contributions

Adam’s major contribution to the world was that he inspired millions of people to create more beautiful photos and he raised photography to a world wide art form. Those are not his only contributions. He also personally instructed 4,500 students at his workshops in Yosemite and many of the students became outstanding professional photographers. Ansel also collaborated with many other good photographers.
He let other people have access to the beauty of nature without leaving their seats. He recorded natural and political history, for example, the Japanese Interment camps. Ansel Adams helped make national parks safe by fighting to preserve them. For example, when Disney was going to build a ski resort, he was stubbornly opposed along the Sierra Club, a group that he photographed with, and Disney soon gave up the idea and the area was incorporated into Sequoia National Park.