who is Ansel Adams?

Ansel Adams was born in 1902 in San Francisco and was a famous photographer in 20th century, as he was well known for his landscape photography as he would capture mesmerizing photos of American’s natural beauty that had been untouched and had been preserved. His most common spots to take pictures would usually be at national parks as it was one of the few places that had kept its natural beauty to capture in west America. Ansel Adams signature style of taking photos for landscapes was captured in Yosemite park. as he captured a picture of a mountain peak using a heavy camera, a tripod and his own additional gear. he visited a place called half dome where he would use visualisation. this would really launch his photography career as would go on to create some memorable photos such as:

‘North Dome, Basket Dome, Mount Hoffman, Yosemite, 1935‘

“Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, 1934“

“Nevada Fall, Rainbow, 1947“

Ansel Adam’s love for the American west came from the fact that he just loved nature. Quoted by Ansel Adams he visited such national parks like Yosemite and Sierra Nevada as they were “coloured and modulated by the great earth gesture”. his first trip to Yosemite was in 1916 were he would start his journey in photography as his father gifted his first camera , an eastern Kodak No.1

what is visualisation?

Ansel Adam’s always said visualisation was when you could see an image in the mind prior to using exposure. as its a continuous project up until the final print. Ansel Adams with some of his friends also created a thing called the “zone system”.

what is the zone system?

the zone system is a chart that ranks numbers from 0 to 10, this could be used to determine. this can be helpful as it could you visualise a photo before you go for your final print to really determine what you want.

Ansel Adam’s camera (kodak brownie) only consisted of two filters: one red and one yellow. for example the yellows would help browns stick out and look better. And the red filter would create an unrealistic look to the image.

Group F/64

Group F/64 was a group that was founded by Ansel Adams that consisted of 7 photographers from the 20th century, their aim was to create “pure photography”. Which could be considered as hypocritical as their work was enhanced before the final image was printed. however this group still created the zonal system which lead to producing some photographers who started to slowly grow into the spot light like Ansel Adams.

Edward Weston, had become far more recognizable for their work, this was shown when he took pictures of vegetables with this one being the most recognizable.

Ansel Adams links to romanticism

Ansel Adams was known for creating some of the most memorable pieces of the 20 century. some would say he even modernised transcendentalism, which is essentially the idea that society is spoiled by the very things they created like massive city’s that are so “brilliant” when they already have brilliant things such as nature with these beautiful landscapes that Ansel Adams is showing off in all his photos. this obviously links to romanticism as some could say this is a similar event to the 18th and 19th century Europe with paintings that artists created.

when looking at the pictures Ansel Adams took you could easily say that his images take inspiration from romanticism as they have many similarity’s.