About Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He was born on the 20th of February, 1902 in San Francisco, California, USA. He passed on the 22nd of April, 1984 in Monterey, California, USA.
Adams was part of ‘Group f/64’, which was an association of different photographers who, as a group, advocated ‘pure’ photography. This type of photography focuses on sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range in a photo. As a group, they even created a Zonal System (as seen below) which ensured that all tonal values are represented in their work. Adams was also seen as an advocate of environmental protection, national parks and creating an enduring legacy of responses to the power of nature and sublime conditions. Other members in Group f/64 included Edward Weston Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham among other female photographers who has been overlooked in the history or photography.
“You don’t take a photograph, you make it”
– Ansel Adams
The Zonal System
The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, put together by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer. Adams described the Zone System as “not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles of sensitometry, worked out by Fred Archer and myself at the Art Centre School in Los Angeles, around 1939–40″.
Adams created high contrasting images using a range of different filters. He used the classic yellow, orange and red filters which he used with black-and-white film. Red had the most dramatic effect, yellow had the least effect on the blue sky; orange was somewhere in between. He wanted each of his images to include all the tones (from 0-10) to be present in his pieces, adding a dramatic effect to his work.
Ansel visualised an image and when the first image (the right photo) didn’t look like his visualisation, he changed the filters and took another photo (on the left) which portrayed his visualisation perfectly
This is one of Adams most famous pieces, featuring a cliff face which Adams photographed in 1927. Adams hiked along Yosemite’s LeConte Gully in order to make this photo, documenting his journey along the way. Once getting to the desired location, Adams set up his camera and snapped a photo, which resulted in the photo on the right. Despite it being an accurate photo, it wasn’t what Adams has previously visualised and he was unsatisfied with it. He decided to add the red filter, and once again snapped a photo. This time, it resulted with the image on the left, a perfect replica of Adams’ visualisation, a darker image with a variety of tones and high contrast. This photo links in perfectly with his zonal system as the image includes all of the tones, resulting in a very tonal photograph.
After putting the photo into photoshop, I zoomed in on an area of the cliff face, which resulted in the image becoming pixelated and showing all the different tones included in the image. I circled the lightest and darkest tone that appears in this area of the picture, proving that Adams’ photos consisted of all of the tones.
Visualisation
“The term visualization refers to the entire emotional-mental process of creating a photograph, and as such, it is one of the most important concepts in photography”
– Ansel Adams
Simply put, photographic visualization is the confluence of imagination and technique. It is the ability to picture the essence of the final print in your mind before releasing the shutter. Adams used this technique to capture the amazing photos he made throughout his career, imaging the result of the photograph how he wanted it to obtain a perfect result. In his case, Adams wanted to create high contrast images with a wide variety of tone, therefore he made sure to choose the right filters (mostly red) to make the photo match his visualisation. Visualisation is what helped Adams attain his unique style, capturing different landscapes in ways that no-one has before. This is also why Ansel Adams said that “you don’t take a photograph, you make it”, as thanks to visualisation he could create amazing images.
Image Analysis
The Story Behind the Picture
Adams got up early on a cold morning of the 10th of April 1927, setting out on a hike along Yosemite’s LeConte Gully, all of his photograph equipment in hand. Adams’ was determined to capture an image of the striking sheer face of Half Dome, which was seen as one of the national park’s most iconic and beautiful aspects. Ansel knew the trail well, as he has spent quite a few of his previous summer holidays as a keeper of the Sierra Club in the nearly lodge located in Yosemite Valley. Despite this, Adams’ was accompanied by his fiancée, Virginia Best, and his three close friends- one of which was his lifetime friend and fellow natural landscape photographer, Cendric Wright. They all made their way along the steep gully in the icy shadow of nearby Grizzly Peak. Adams had already taken this journey once before, taking the route about a decade earlier, to capture the very spot with his new Kodak Brownie camera. He took several images of the Half Dome, including one upside-down image, his favourite, taken accidentally as he fell off a stump.
When Adams and his companies reached the Diving Board, a steep outcropping more than 3,500 feet above Yosemite Valley, Ansel knew this was the perfect place from which he would capture the Half Dome’s sheer face. The photograph he made, “Monolith, the Face of the Half Dome” captured the mountain under the nose of the dark sky, contrasting with its face being illuminated by the sparkling midday sun. Adams firstly made an exposure using a yellow filter, however this didn’t present the photo as he visualised it. He then took the red filter, which made the sky darker and produced this contrasting image we can see today, perfectly resembling his visualisation. The photos technical excellence and artistic mastery would soon launch Adams’ career as one of the finest commercial and fine-art photographers of the 20th century.
Today, the image stands as not only one of Adams’ finest works, but as a lasting and iconic depiction of one of the most unique spots in the American wilderness.
The Photo
This photo clearly represents the features of romanticism and the sublime, capturing a naturally- formed mountain face over towering the snowy landscape around it. Despite Adams’ long hike up and along the gully, the photograph always remained below the top of the Half Dome, portraying the massive size of the mountain. This perfectly suggests the idea of the sublime, how our human architecture and industry will forever remain insignificance against the great creations of nature. The image includes an amazing variation of different tones, creating contrast and causing there to be a dramatic mood throughout the photo. The composition of the image, allows the dark sky to be seen on the left side of the image, once again creating a dramatic effect and adding an area of dark tone in the image. The textured face of the Half Dome, causes us to realise the age of the mountain, the different texture showing us how long it has lasted and the different weathers it survived. The lines illuminated by the sun also create leading lines, guiding our eyes down through the photo and helping us image the sheer size of the mountain in real life.