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| Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer, most known for his black and white photographs of California's Yosemite Valley. A commercial photographer for 30 years, he made visionary photos of western landscapes that were inspired by a boyhood trip to Yosemite. He won three Guggenheim grants to photograph national parks (1944-58). Adams’ perfection for the craft inspired a trilogy of technical instruction manuals. Adams first visited Yosemite in 1916 and was transfixed by the beautiful valley. In 1919, at age 17, he had his first contact with the Sierra Club when he took a job as custodian of a lodge at the Club headquarters in Yosemite National Park. Adams joined the Sierra Club, a group dedicated to preserving the world's natural wonders and resources. He remained a member throughout his lifetime and served as a director, as did his wife, Virginia. Adams was an environmentalist, and his photographs are a record of what many of these national parks were like before human intervention and travel. His work has promoted many of the goals of the Sierra Club and brought environmental issues to light. In 1966, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1980, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. In Mount McKinley, Alaska, Adams captures the glory of an unhampered, serene, pure landscape. Adams’ hope was that he could influence with awareness, a more connected relationship to the wilderness and natural landscape, in hopes of restoring the realm of human thought and consciousness. Adams said, “I am convinced, after only two visits to “The Great Land,” that Alaska is one of the most impressive reservoirs of beauty and wildness-an inexhaustible resource for creative interpretation.”  (For Grades 9-12) Can you imagine what this scene might look like if you were to see it today? Do you think it would look the same or different? Why? Does the image make you feel any notions of serenity and stillness, as the photographer intended? If not, what does it make you feel? In what ways do you think Ansel Adams’ contributions to the Sierra Club and to the environment might have helped to preserve a place like Mt. McKinley? |
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Ansel Easton Adams American, 1902-1984 Mount McKinley, Alaska Silver Gelatin Print, ca. 1948 Collection Museum of Photographic Arts Gift of Joseph Isaacson 1993.013.001 © Trustees of The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust |
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