ANSEL ADAMS

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 12th grade February 2008

download word file, 2 pages 0.0

Downloaded 12 times

ANSEL ADAMS RYAN LONG Photography-EB Feb. 21, 2002 Ansel Adams is widely regarded as one of the most influential photographers of his time. His painstaking attention to the smallest detail and unavoidable desire for complete photographic purity is what Adams is known for in the photographic world. It is his impeccable control of tonality that is that is remarkably clear when witnessing his photographs of wide scales and intimate detail. Adams' photography is synonymous with the landscape of the American West and the Sierra Nevada.

Adams was born in 1902 and was raised to become a concert pianist. His attention abruptly changed, however, when he visited Yosemite National Park in 1916. It was during this trip that he discovered the unbound world of photography. Taking photographs first with a camera his parents had given him to document his trip to Yosemite, young Ansel found a way to capture the beauty he saw in the wilderness in a way that allowed other people to take part in the enjoyment.

Adam's earliest works were in soft-focus, which was the popular trend in photography at the time. After meeting Paul Strand and others, however, he work began to change to sharp-focus, of which he is regarded for today. Adam's returned to Yosemite for many summers after his original trip to collect a wide array of photographic art of his own creation. It is the photographs of Yosemite, California coast, and the wilderness of the American West for which he is known most.

Adams was one of the first and firmest in believing that photography was a fine-art, rather than a tool for documentation. He believed there were two types of assignments he did, "from within" and "from without". "From within" assignments were images he felt compelled to create inside. These were the images...