Ansel Easton Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West.

He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favoured sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph. Adams was an advocate of environmental protection, national parks and creating an enduring legacy of responses to the power of nature and sublime condition.

He created a Zonal System to ensure that all tonal values created by highlights, low-lights and mid-tones are represented in the images.

The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development. It provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with black-and-white sheet film, the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black-and-white and colour, negative and reversal and to digital photography.

Ansel Adams was also very concerned with the tonal range of an image, the 11 zones in Ansel Adams’ system were defined to represent the gradation of all the different tonal values you would see in a black and white print, with zone 5 being middle grey, zone 0 being pure black (with no detail), and zone 10 being pure white (with no detail).

ANALYSIS OF ANSEL ADAMS’ WORK

Moon and Half Dome by Ansel Adams is a prime example of his work, the heavy contrast between tonal values (ranging from the pure white of the snow and moon to the pitch black of the shadows on the mountain). The texture of the mountain is very visible, adding more depth to the images, strong shadows which are in the foreground frame the centrepiece of the moon and cliff- leading to a very atmospheric, dramatic image which successfully exudes strong emotions (linking to romanticism) and a steady, clear aesthetic.