Ansel Adams was an inspirational American photographer, based in California. He is best known for his black and white photos of the American West, which are carefully composed and precise. Adams has produced some of the most iconic photos within the medium which are his photos of Yosemite National Park. Adams was born during 1902 in San Francisco, the photographer trained to be a concert pianist before later switching to photography during 1930. Along with Edward Western and Imogen Cunningham, Adams formed Group f/64 with the aim to elevate photography as a form of high art rather than just the form of documentation that it was seen as back then. Adams was a committed environmentalist and travelled throughout the country to capture the beauty of natural sites. Adams died during 1984 in California and today his photography work is held in many collections throughout museums such as The Museum Of Modern Art which is in New York as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Despite Ansel Adams starting photography many years ago during 1930 his photography work is seen as modern in comparison to other work made at the time. This is due to his smart use of light and shadow and his extreme attention to detail. Due to Adams strong contrast of black and white in his photos they fit in well with the theme of romanticism and the sublime. This is because the photos produce an overwhelming feeling of power in the sense that the photo is beautiful however it also holds a power over you that you cannot control. His photography is a perfect example of the sublime in nature as his photos hold an unexplainable level of beauty and greatness. Ansel Adams not only photographed black and white images but he also photographed coloured images which also fit in with the theme of romanticism and the sublime.

Despite being most known for his eye-catching black and white landscape photography Ansel Adams has also created coloured landscape photography which also fits in with the theme of romanticism due to the strong and bright colours of them. He began taking coloured photography after the Kodachrome film was invented during the mid 1930s. He made almost 3500 photos in colour, some of which were first published in the 1993 edition of ‘ANSEL ADAMS IN COLOUR’.

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park is one of the most important parks in the US as it is the third one to be designated by an act of congress in 1890. This park is also important as it is home to many rare and endangered species such as the Asian black bear. Ansel Adams’ collection of photos based on Yosemite National Park is one of his most iconic and well known collections. Adams’ seen more than just the rocks, trees, and rivers, he saw art. Yosemite National Park was of great importance to Adams as it was the root source of his inspiration in his photography.

 The zone system

The zone system in photography is a scale representing different brightness levels, 0 being pure black, 5 being grey, and 10 being pure white. Ansel Adams tended to label his different zones using Roman numerals rather than Arabic numerals.

Blow is an example of Adams’ photography with the different zones being labelled on it and as you can see it has a wide range of different brightness levels which makes the photo extremely contrasted.

To create his range of dark and bright tones within his photography Ansel Adams used multiple exposures of the same image and used dodging and burning to exploit as much of a dynamic range as possible. This is similar to Gustave’s method and required multiple exposures to blend in a dark room. This method is used to create what is known as today HDR Photography.

Planning a response:

To respond to Ansel Adams I will take photos with 3 different exposures so I am able to blend them together using Adobe Light-Room classic once they have been taken. I will take these photos of landscapes such as beaches, sand dunes, trees and fields.

Ansel Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black and white images of the American West. He is also perhaps the most widely known and beloved photographer in the history of the United States; the popularity of his work has only increased since his death. Adams’s most important work was devoted to what was or appeared to be the country’s remaining fragments of untouched wilderness, especially in national parks and other protected areas of the American West. He was also a vigorous and outspoken leader of the conservation movement.

The Zone System

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.

Visualisation

 Ansel Adams describes it as the ability to see the scene you photograph and recreate in your mind the print you will produce. Meaning see your developed image, relying on the information you receive from the scene and on your developing intentions.

Romanticism is an artistic and intellectual movement which is characterised by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorifying nature and the past, preferring the medieval over classical. Romanticism began in Europe near the end of the 18th century in approximately 1770, during a time of war with the French Revolution, which fuelled it. The romantic movement was primarily a reaction against the scientific rationalisation of nature and a revolt against the restrained emotional nature and the overwhelming changes in society introduced by industrialisation. For most of the Western world, its peak was approximately 1800 to 1850.

A main characteristic of romanticism is the deepened appreciation towards nature. There is a range of romantic landscapes which portray and praise nature for its ferociousness and lack of mercy, or it being beautiful and serene.

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What is the Sublime?

Sublime is described by Edmund Burke as an artistic effect that is “the strongest passion”, and in all cases terror and fear is the ruling principle. Furthermore, the sublime is associated with evoking the feeling of the strongest emotion that the mind is capable of experiencing, usually surrounding nature, which inspires great awe and terror knowing you are smaller and insignificant in comparison and at the mercy of nature.