Ansel Adams was a photography born in San Francisco in 1902. During the 20th century. In April 1902, there was a big earthquake in San Francisco that caused the death of around 3,000 people. Ansel Adams broke his nose during this earthquake and caused his face to be disfigured, this caused him to be extremely shy in school because he was insecure about his injury. His dad moved him schools several times however Adams was never happy or settled which then meant his dad home-schooled him so that he could be comfortable in his own home. Adams was really into music and he loved to play the piano, however as the years went on he realised he would never become a professional musician. For his 14th birthday he received a camera called a box brownie which he was extremely pleased with. He first visited Yosemite National Park when he was 14 and he admired the views of all the mountains and the cliffs. He started to take photos of the views and he would climb cliffs to get a perfect picture from a high point. He had visuals of what he wanted the photographs to look like however he never achieved these pictures until he used a red lens and increase the shutter speed, after doing this he created his perfect picture and was extremely satisfied. Him and his friend, Fred Archer created something called the zone system :

Which splits the full range from black to white into 11 separate zones. This helped him in his photography because he would determine where each zone fits into his image.

In 1927, Adams became the trip photographer for the Sierra club which protected the wildlife and the nature of the Sierra Nevada and is now the biggest and oldest environmental organisation in the united states. After this, his role in the Sierra Club rapidly got more important and he started organising hikes and talks about the Sierra Nevada and his first photographs and writings became published on the clubs bulletin. He started to become very involved in the political side of the Clubs activities and was suggesting proposals for improving parks and wilderness areas and became a representative for the National Yosemite Park.

Later on in his life he was known best for his landscape photography and was often known as the “Father of landscape photography”. He took most of his landscape photography in Yosemite National Park because he was extremely moved by the experience he had when he visited the place for the first time. Adams photography is unique because of the realist style he uses to portray Yosemite National Park as it appears, whether as other landscape photographers use a pictorialist style to create an artistic image.

I really like Ansel Adams photography because it is very eerie and dark however it is also beautiful and graceful in its own way. This clearly links to the romanticism sublime because it is a very intriguing picture with several different aspects of beauty however the darkness makes the viewers feel nervous and anxious as there is no clear story of what is happening in the picture. To link to enlightenment, we can see that the picture is intended to be a picture that is negative because of the dull colours and the tone of colour on the trees and the mountains, this is contradicting as this picture is of a place he used to visit when he was young and it means something to Ansel Adams and it brings him joy and happiness when he is there because of the nostalgic feeling he gets.

Edward Weston

Edward Weston was an American photographer in the early to mid-20th century, he was best known for his careful composed, sharply focussed images of natural forms and landscapes. On his 16th birthday he was gifted a camera, this influenced him to start taking photos. Weston once said, take a picture of something ordinary, and make it extraordinary.