Ansel Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black and white landscape photography. He was a founding member of the Group f/64.
Notable works by Adams include a series of black and white photographs in Yosemite National Park California. These included: Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, and El Capitan, Cliffs and Tree, Winter. Many of his landscapes, such as the series from Yosemite, are devoid of evidence of people. In contrast, Adams’s Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, depicts small buildings and a cemetery under a dramatic sunset and moonrise. His portraits included a depiction of Georgia O’Keeffe and Orville Cox at Canyon de Chelly National Monument. He also photographed the cityscape of his hometown of San Francisco.
Ansel Adams and Fred Archer co-developed the Zone System, for pre-visualizing the tonalities of a photograph in an era before digital photography. Adams was also influential in establishing the photography collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Adams was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946. The Sierra Club, who awarded him the John Muir Award in 1963, in 1971 created the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography in his honor. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980 in recognition for his lifetime of contribution to the arts.
Born: 1902, San Francisco, United States
Died: 1984
Education: Private schooled to 8th grade
Public domain images:
Valley, Snow Covered Mountains in background, “In Glacier National Park,” Montana
The Tetons – Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. 1942