Ansel Adams: frozen beauty

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:46

Ansel Adams is a name that is known to art photography lovers all over the world. A Californian photographer, almost the same age as the century, born in 1902 and having lived a long creative life, Adams captured on film everything that caught his eye.

Portraits of contemporaries and grandiose architectural structures, frozen urban landscapes of industrial America and, of course, wildlife. It was landscape shots, almost always made in monochrome, that made it possible to go down in the history of the name Ansel Adams.

The biography of the photographer originates in California, where at the beginning of the 20th century he was born into a happy we althy family that had already given up hope of an heir. Parents, heirs of the timber business, which was started by Ansel's great-grandfather, doted on their son, but raised him modestly, with love for the world around him and his native nature.

Early years

Being a late and beloved child, the future photography genius grew up sickly, which made him incapable of sporting achievements and, rarely attending school, made friends with difficulty, preferring loneliness to them. At the age of 4 he broke his nose and,starting to be ashamed of his face, he became even more shy. The inability to learn to read and write well due to dyslexia did not make life easier for little Ansel.

In the end, his father and mother decided to teach him at home and took him out of school, which influenced his entire future life, inextricably linked with the majestic nature of America. The father took long walks with the child, instilling in him a love for animals, insects and plants.

First steps in the profession

When the boy was 14, his family took him to Yosemite National Park. For a walk, he took with him a camera donated by his father, and after that he began to get involved in filming seriously, visiting exhibitions, subscribing to magazines and joining a photography club. This moment can be considered the beginning of his life as a photographer. The charm of nature impressed Ansel so much that for the rest of his life he came to the park every year with a camera and a tripod, taking more and more pictures.

A year before coming of age, Ansel Adams became a member of the Sierra Club, whose work was to protect natural monuments and fight for the preservation of the environment. The club will be his home for years to come. Within its walls, he will find like-minded people and meet his future wife Virginia, will participate in the conquest of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and later he will become a director.

Creative throwing and first successes

The creative nature of the growing young man could not stop at one thing, and soon he began to study music, learning to play the piano and getting acquainted withmany artists. Despite the new hobby, Ansel did not forget about photography: in the cold season, he completely devoted himself to music, and spent three summer months on photo trips. His work began to be published, but the dream of a career as a musician did not leave Ansel.

At the age of 25, Ansel Adams created his first portfolio, which he was justly proud of and which gained a well-deserved success. It was valued at $4,000. Businessmen, the rich and celebrities have become regular customers of his photographs. He developed as a photographer, experimented with various artistic styles, settled on realism, which became the hallmark of his work.

After marrying, Ansel and his wife created a gallery in her father's studio that would become the most famous in the world. Then he realized that he would no longer be a great musician, and completely devoted himself to photography, spending more and more time behind the lens, and soon held his first exhibition.

Defender of nature and master of photography

Ansel Adams devoted three quarters of his life to photography. Before reaching the age of 40, he began to be respected by famous and eminent colleagues, and also created his famous "Zone Theory", in which he talked about how to reproduce tones in a monochrome photograph. The theory forever imprinted his name: and today professional photographers use it to calculate the exposure.

Consultant for Polariod and Hasselband, author of dozens of books on photography, member of the American Academy of Sciences, founding the first department of photography art in the States and a magazineApertura, a two-time Guggenheim Fellow who has a mountain in the Sierra Nevada named after her, is Ansel Adams.

Quotes from the master, who created more than ten thousand photographs, distinguished by impeccable technique and unforgettable composition, help to understand what this extraordinary person who devoted himself to creativity and service to nature was like.

Words of a genius about life's work

"Sometimes I find myself in such beautiful places where God is just waiting for me to press the shutter of the camera."

"There are always two in any photo - the viewer and the photographer."

"A real photograph is self-explanatory and does not need to be expressed in words."

"There are no rules for shooting - there are only good shots."