Ansel Adams

 

Looking for a diversion from non-stop news watching, I borrowed this video from my library. I didn't know very much about Ansel Adams, and enjoyed learning about his life and career. He studied piano for many years, planning to make music his career, and hiking in and photographing the Yosemite Valley was just his hobby, although he was equally passionate about it. Eventually, he decided that it was photography that was his calling, and he devoted the next 60 years to it. He also had a photography business (which paid the bills), and became involved in the Sierra Club and the conservationist movement. An interesting fact: his father took him out of school at age 12 to home school him for a period of time. He bought a year-long pass to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and attended it every day. He eventually returned to school, although in a private setting.

Our library has a nice collection of Ansel Adams books, including this one: Ansel Adams: 50 Years of Portraits. I was only familiar with Adams' outdoor photography, so it was nice to see that he had explored portraiture as well. This collection is full of lots of famous artists, photographers, and writers, along with folks Adams bumped into on his travels, e.g., "Lobsterman," "Japanese-American Youth." Many of his portraits were of extreme close-ups, with the face taking up the entire frame; others show the subject in their environment. This book was published by an organization formed by Adams and some fellow artists called Friends of Photography; their goal was to publish and promote photography as an art form. The series of volumes was called "Untitled," published between 1972 and 1994, and this was the 16th in the series.

This is a collection of seven portfolios containing a cross-section of 45 years' worth of Adams' photographs. They include many of his famous shots of Mount McKinley, Sentinel Rock, Old Faithful, Half Dome, and El Capitan. There are also many scenes of trees, lakes, and dunes, as well as a few portraits, architecture, and still lifes. I find it interesting that there are no photographs of wildlife (although there is one photo of a moth on a stump). I wonder if he was uninterested in wildlife or just didn't come across it (although I would find it hard to believe, given how much time he spent trekking around the outdoors.) The most interesting photographs are the trees, plants, flowers, and orchards.

 

 

 

 

Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams were friends of and on for many years, both enamored of the American Southwest. This book shows how they both presented similar landscapes and architecture in their works. The essays describe how their lives overlapped, the times they spent together, and their relationships with Alfred Stieglitz, who was O'Keeffe's husband and Adams' mentor.