Who was American Photographer Ansel Adams?

Ansel Adams is arguably the most prolific American photographer in history Most famous for his aesthetically pleasing landscape photography, Adams spent a good portion of his time in California's Yosemite National Park documenting nature as it was. He was born in 1902, in San Francisco, and fell in love with nature at an early age and could often be found wandering around the beaches or sitting quietly under the Golden Gate.

As an adolescent, Adams struggled in school and might now be characterized as dyslexic or ADHD. He was tutored at home but excelled in music, teaching himself to read music and play piano at the age of 12. Interestingly, Adams had an early career in being a pianist which might have given him the discipline and technical perfection he later exhibited through his favorite visual medium, photography.

From the year 1916 consistently until his death in 1984, Ansel spent a good portion of time in Yosemite. He joined the Sierra Club and continued to meet and network with other nature enthusiasts, eventually leading to his 1934 Sierra Club Board of Directors position.

1927 was the year when Ansel Adams was able to come in to his own. A chance encounter with Albert Bender, a patron of the arts and well-to-do businessman from San Francisco, gave Adams his first break. In addition to having an advocate, this one event gave him the confidence he needed to transition from being a concert pianist to a photographer who was able to provide for himself, and his young wife.

Adams transitioned from a photographer who manipulated his images to the darkroom to focusing on "straight photography", or capturing an image through a clear lens and achieving technical perfection, without the use of darkroom manipulation.

In 1927, he also met and became friends with Edward Weston, and the two formed Group f/64. This would be the group that would ensure Adams' first one-man show, by providing a conduit with San Francisco's DeYoung Museum.

The early 1930s propelled Ansel Adams even further in to the stuff of legend, partly due to his charisma. During a trip to New York, he met Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer whom he admired and developed a friendship with. In 1936, Stieglitz provided Adams with another big break: another one-man show at An American Place.

Ansel's success eventually caught up with him in a negative and unexpected way. In the mid 1930s, he confided in a friend that though he had landed many commercial jobs for companies like Kodak and Zeiss, he missed his passion: nature photography. In addition, Adams found himself concerned about the intermittent nature of commercial jobs and his financial well-being until his death.

Success followed Adams, throughout his life and through death. One of the most popular artists of all time, Adams' original prints continue to sell for higher and higher prices. Though he never took a photograph for conservation, his images have been linked to preservation and appreciation for the wild. Ultimately, his legacy is threefold: artist/photographer, conservationist/nature enthusiast and great communicator and his voice lives on through continued interest in all three areas. He will likely always be viewed as the ultimate technical perfectionist, and his beautiful images revered for capturing a time in which nature was still in a more natural state.

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