Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was born in 1902 in San Francesco, CA. Adams trained as a concert pianist before turning his career towards photography in 1930. Cited as one of the most important American landscape photographers of the 20th century, Adams legend, both personal and professional, continues to grow as new generations find inspiration and nostalgia in his many works.

Dedicated to preserving the capture of the “forgotten and unspoiled” wilderness of America, Adams became known as an icon of environmentalism, navigating the conservation movement from behind the lens. As a founding member of Group f/64, whose efforts to raise photography to a “higher” and more pure form of art, succeeded in aiding Adams as he paved the way for photography to be accepted and perceived as high art.

When approached through the lens of modernity, Adams believed that, “landscape photography might in fact match music or poetry in its potential to stimulate a sense of higher contemplation in the spectator”, achieving his goal of aiding the viewer in contemplating his photographs as more than just “pictorial” landscapes.

Exact dating of Ansel Adam’s photographs is a complex endeavour. Adams admitted that he was more interested in documenting technical information about his photographs rather than keeping records of negatives and print dates.

Adams works are held in the collections of MoMA in NY, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, among others. His success lies in the precision of his composition and techniques to produce works that are awe-inspiring black-and-white, romantic documentations of the American West. Ansel Adams died April 22nd, 1984.