Ansel Adams

American landscape photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams is best renowned for his black-and-white photographs of the American West. In order to ensure that all tonal values are represented in the photos, he co-founded Group f/64, a group of photographers who promoted “pure” photography. This style stressed tight focus and the utilization of the entire tonal range of a shot. Ansel Adams fought for environmental preservation, the establishment of national parks, and the preservation of the power of nature and its beautiful settings via the creation of a lasting legacy.

Group F/64

The group f/64 was formed in 1932. They were a loose association of California photographers who promoted a style of sharply detailed purist photography. The original group members were; Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke, John Paul Edwards, Brett Weston, Conseulo Kanaga, Alma Lavenson, Sonya Noskowiak and Preston Holder. The name of this group was taken from the smallest setting of large-format camera diaphragm aperture that gives a good resolution of depth of field. Even though the members of the group had a wide range of subject matter in their work, they were all similar in the way that they all used the camera to photograph life as it is.

The Zone System

This zone system was created by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer. They developed this zone system to help photographers control their black and white images. It was also designed to provide structure for determining exposure, which ensured that the photographer could create a properly exposed image each time they took a photo. It was made to put the 11 zones into order of gradient. Each zone represents all of the different tones you would see in a black and white photo.