ANSEL ADAMS Photographer 1902 - 1984 Ansel Adams, The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming 1942 Enter your search terms Submit search form   Web gardenofpraise.com

Ansel Adams was born February 20, 1902 in San Francisco, California. His father was Charles Adams, and his mother was named Olive.

In the earthquake on April 18, 1906, the Adams' house was damaged, but they were still able to live in it. Most of the inhabitants of the city were left homeless. In an aftershock* the young boy Ansel, then four years old, was tossed around and his nose was broken. For the rest of his life he had a crooked nose.

His family was wealthy when he was young, but they suffered financial reverses and went from having a cook, a maid, and a governess to doing everything for themselves when they could no longer afford to hire help.

Ansel was homeschooled by his father and his Aunt Mary until he was nine years old. Then he was put in various schools, but he did not do well. He was a very nervous, hyperactive child. His father saw something special in his son and did his best to nurture* him. He removed him from the school and hired tutors to teach him algebra and Greek.

Ansel became interested in the piano, taught himself to play, and began to take lessons. Music provided the structure that had been missing in his life. He learned how to play in a couple of months and his father bought for him a $6,000 piano, paying it out by installments.

When he was thirteen his father bought him a one-year pass to San Francisco's Panama Pacific International Exposition*. This would be his schooling for a year. He went to the exposition every day. It was at the Exposition that he first saw displays of art and pictorial photography.

The following year he was captivated* by a book he saw about Yosemite, then his parents took him on a trip to Yosemite. First they traveled by train, then by bus to reach the area. His parents gave him a Kodak Brownie box camera with which he took pictures at Yosemite. This trip was actually the turning point in his life.

Back at home he would practice the piano for six hours a day. He had decided to become a concert pianist, then in the summer he would return to the mountains. While he was in the mountains the only place he had to practice the piano was at Best's Studio owned by Harry Best.

Harry also had a daughter named Virginia, who eventually became Ansel's wife. He was twenty-six years old when they were married. He and Virginia moved into a little house at the back of the studio and raised their two children there. Best's Studio would later become known as the Ansel Adam's Gallery.

He continued with his work as a professional* photographer, and after having some success at selling some portfolios of his prints, he saw he would be able to make a better living as a photographer than as a concert pianist. He experimented with different filters on his camera and different ways of developing the prints. His photographs became works of art. By 1935 he was recognized as one of the best photographers in America. Wealthy people began to hire him to make portraits of their families and pictures of their homes.

Leaf in Glacier National Park by Ansel Adams Larger view

Ansel Adams specialized in black and white photography. Sometimes it would take him a whole day to print a picture to make it look exactly as he wanted it. One of his most famous prints is Moonrise (use the right arrows to view other prints) .

Alfred Stieglitz offered him a one-man show in New York. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. He worked so hard that summer preparing for exhibits he worked himself to exhaustion. It took him months to recover.

Adams had been active in the Sierra Club* since he was a teenager, and now he was on the board of directors. In this way he helped to preserve the environment. His book of photographs, Sierra Nevada: the John Muir Trail, when given to President Theodore Roosevelt helped to influence him to support King's Canyon as a national park.

The Department of the Interior commissioned* him to make a set of murals. They are featured in a book Ansel Adams: The National Park Service Photographs . Adams published numerous books of his photographic work and books about photography. To share his knowledge he held workshops to teach people photography. He was a great teacher.

In 1980 President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom which is the nation's highest honor given to a civilian.

In 1983 he visited his beloved Yosemite for the last time and died the next year on April 22, 1984. He was 82 years old.

Ansel Adams Wilderness

Six months after his death Congress set aside some land in the Sierra Nevada area of California they named "Ansel Adams Wilderness", and a mountain was named in his honor, "Mount Ansel Adams".

Interviews with Ansel Adams at BBC Ansel Adams at 100 interactive Flash presentationcom description of the program Ansel Adams, Photographer at the Ansel Adams Gallery Ansel Adams American Expeience at PBS Ansel Adams transcript of the program at PBS (students may want to enlarge text) Ansel Easton Adams Ansel Adams biography at Yosemite National Park Ansel Adams at Wikipedia Ansel Adams: A Life's Work Indepth Art News Ansel Adams: Defining the American Wilderness Ansel Adams: A Biography online book at Google books copyright material, pages have been omitted

Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs By Ansel Adams / Little, Brown, and Co presents the full spectrum Adams' greatest work in a single volume for the first time, offering an entirely new perspective on his monumental career.. The photographs are arranged chronologically into five major periods in order to convey Adams' development as an artist-from his first photographs made in Yosemite and the High Sierra in 1916 to his work in the National Parks in the 1940s up to his last important photographs from the 1960s. An introduction and brief essays on selected images provide information about Adams' life, document the evolution of his technique, and give voice to his artistic vision. Few artists of any era can claim to have produced four hundred images of lasting beauty and significance. It is a testament to Adams' vision and a lifetime of hard work that a book of this scale can be justified. ANSEL ADAMS: 400 PHOTOGRAPHS is a must-have reference and gift book for anyone who appreciates photography and the allure of the natural world.

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From Word Central's Student Dictionary
by Merriam - Webster

aftershock
AF ter shok
Function: noun
a small earthquake or tremor that follows a major earthquake.

nurture
NURCH uhr
Function: verb
to educate or further the development of

exposition
ek spuh ZISH un
Function: noun
a public exhibition

captivate
KAP tuh vAt
Function: verb
to influence or fascinate by some special charm

professional
pruh FESH uhn uhl
Function: adjective
taking part for money in an activity that others do for pleasure

commission
kuh MISH uhn
Function: verb
to order to be made

Sierra Club
Function: noun
a U.S. environmental organization founded in 1892
dedicated to the preservation and expansion of the
world's parks, wildlife, and wilderness areas

Biographies in this Series

Presidents of the United States	George Washington 1st U.S. President	John Adams 2nd U.S. President	Thomas Jefferson 3rd U.S.President
	James Monroe 5th U.S. President	Andrew Jackson 7th U.S. President	Abraham Lincoln 16th U.S.President
	Franklin D. Roosevelt 32nd U.S. President	John F. Kennedy 35th U.S. President	James Madison 4th U.S. President
	Theodore Roosevelt 26th U.S. President
American Patriots	Benjamin Franklin patriot and statesman	Francis Scott Key Star Spangled Banner	Deborah Sampson woman soldier in the Revolutionary War
World Leaders	Constantine Roman Emperor	Alexander the Great conqueror	Winston Churchill British Prime Minister
Inventors	Alexander Graham Bell telephone	Johann Gutenberg printing press	Cyrus McCormick mechanical reaper
	The Wright Brothers first airplane	Henry Ford Automaker	Thomas A. Edison electric light bulb
	Sequoyah Cherokee alphabet	Nikola Tesla 700 patents	.
Explorers	Christopher Columbus explorer	Meriwether Lewis explorer	Robert Peary Arctic explorer
	John Muir Naturalist	Matthew Henson Arctic Explorer	Sir Edmund Hillary Mr.Everest
	Kit Carson Indian agent	"Johnny Appleseed" orchardist	.
Women who made a difference	Clara Barton founder of the Red Cross	Helen Keller overcame blindness & deafness	Florence Nightingale founder of nursing profession
	Joan of Arc religious and military leader	Amelia Earhart Aviator	Annie Oakley sharpshooter
	Susan B. Anthony Suffragette	Elizabeth Keckly Seamstress	Harriet Tubman deliverer of slaves
	Anne Frank Diarist	Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian	.
Scientists	George Washington Carver botanist and educator	Sir Isaac Newton explained gravity and properties of light	Marie Curie scientist, physicist
	Louis Pasteur Biologist	Albert Einstein physicist, genius	Galileo Astronomer, physicist
Educators	Noah Webster writer of dictionary	Booker T. Washington leader and educator	Aristotle Greek philosopher
Physicians	Hippocrates father of medicine	Walter Reed discovered cause of yellow fever	Albert Schweitzer humanitarian
Religious Leaders	Increase Mather Salem witch trials	.
Athletes	Lou Gehrig baseball player	Wilma Rudolph Olympic gold medal winner	Tiger Woods golfer
Civil Rights Leaders	Martin Luther King civil rights leader	Rosa Parks bus desegregation	Sojourner Truth Former slave
	Frederick Douglass Abolitionist	Mary Ann Shadd Cary Civil rights leader	James Forten Inventor, abolitionist
Composers	Beethoven composer
Artists	John James Audubon artist and naturalist	Gutzon Borglum sculptor, Mount Rushmore	Ansel Adams photographer

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