Ansel Adams

Happy Birthday Ansel Adams!! Born in 1902, Adams was an innovative photographer who originally planned on becoming a pianist. A love for nature and a champion for the environment, Adams used the camera as an artistic tool. He captured the quiet beauty of nature with his lens and encouraged Americans to protect the environment. His words eloquently describe his aim: “The negative is the musical score. The print is the performance.” While surely, the pristine beauty of nature alone is evident in his photographs, the emotion he conveys push his work from simply recording nature to Art. Adams authored nearly four dozen books. He was quite instrumental in furthering the Sierra Club’s cause, serving as director for a time. Alfred Stieglitz hosted a one man show of Adams’ work in 1936, in the well-known New York gallery “An American Place”. Yosemite (1940) is presented below, and in Ansel’s words: “A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.”