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| Ansel Adams stands as one of America’s greatest landscape photographers. Born in San Francisco, Adams was trained as a concert pianist. His first photographs were made at the age of 14 using a Kodak Brownie camera during a visit to Yosemite Valley with his parents. This visit strongly influenced the course of Adams’ life. By age 30, he had changed his path and chosen a career in photography. Adams’ photographs are elegantly composed and technically flawless. Ansel Adams proved a tireless investigation of the methods of photography, pioneering a method called The Zone System, a technique which allows photographers to translate the light they see into specific densities on negatives and paper, thus giving better control over finished images. Throughout his career, Ansel Adams became well-known for the clarity of his instruction and his hands-on workshop approach to the medium. Ansel Adams advocated the role of photography as a fine art, inspiring new ways of seeing and communicating. He influenced generations of photographers though his teaching, practice, and publishing endeavors, and has gained standing as one of America’s best-known photographer. Aspens, Northern New Mexico, was made on an autumn day with a large format “8 x 10” camera. Ansel Adams writes that he was driving on a highway near the crest of the Sangre de Cristo mountains with his wife and assistants, and they came across a “stand of young aspen trees in mellow gold.” The photographer “immediately knew there were wonderful images to be made in the area,” and what resulted were two images, within an hour of each other, one of which you see here. Adams also said, “Either the photograph speaks to a viewer or it does not. I cannot demand that anyone receive from the image just what was in my visualization at the time of exposure. I believe that if I am able to express what I saw and felt, the image will contain qualities that may provide a basis for imaginative response by the viewer.”  (For Grades 9-12) What Elements of Art can you find in this image? Line? Shape? Texture? From which side of the image does it seem that the sunlight enters the frame? What time of year do you think this was taken? Why? What vantage point was this image taken from? |
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Ansel Easton Adams American, 1902-1984 Aspens, Northern New Mexico Gelatin Silver Print, ca. 1948 Collection Museum of Photographic Arts Gift of Weston Gallery, Inc. 1985.036.003 © Trustees of The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust |
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