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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 The White Church, Adams depicts a church in the background of a landscape, which is overwrought and surrounded with wood and metal fences that seem to zigzag around the terrain. Adams uses strong compositional force while framing the church in the background of a jagged surrounding landscape.  (For Grades 9-12) How has Adams made use of the compositional elements of art and principles of design (line, scale, shape, texture, patterns, etc) to emphasize the changing nature of the landscape? How does this photograph accentuate the process of land development and either commercial or non-commercial building while reinforcing the concept of preservation? How do you feel about the public’s general interest in preservation and respect for the environment? Do you think Ansel Adams has made a dramatic contribution to the future thinkers of society, in terms of a social-consciousness? How socially-conscious do you think you are? What are some topics you would address if you were assigned to take a series of images about the subject of social-consciousness and awareness? What might people be afraid of or shocked to see? |
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Ansel Easton Adams American, 1902-1984 The White Church, Hornitos, CA Silver Gelatin Print, ca. 1946 Collection Museum of Photographic Arts Gift of Joseph Isaacson 1993.013.006 © Trustees of The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust |
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