The Life and Message of Ansel Adams:

America’s Photography Legend

I present this paper to fulfill the Advanced Placement English Eleven requirement of a final

research paper for the end of my eleventh grade year at Concord High School.

Meg Thomas; Period E; 1, June 2007.

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Ansel Adams Research Paper

“It is not essential to know how the artist thinks or how he believes he relates to his

profession or his society. What he creates is his message.” These were the wise words of the

man who was, and still is, the most well known photographer in American history—Ansel

Adams. Adams’s message was to capture the beauty of nature and to promote the conservation

of our earth and his photographs are existing proof of it.

On February 20th, 1902, Ansel Adams was born and placed in the loving arms of Charles

and Olive Adams. At the age of four, Ansel and his little family experienced what he said to be,

“ ‘…His closest experience with profound human suffering’” (“People and Events: The San”)—a

humongous earthquake that is estimated to have measured about 8.3 on the Richter scale. A few

minutes later an after shock slammed Ansel into a wall and broke his nose. When the family

went to the doctor, the doctor said that he would, “… [d]o nothing about straightening Ansel’s

broken nose until he matured. Ansel…liked to joke that he never did mature” (Gherman #3).

As Ansel grew up, he loved to explore the dunes of sand and grasses around their isolated

home on the Western side of San Francisco. “[Ansel] always insisted that this early environment

shaped his life—the sights, the sounds, the smell of his world. He didn’t know what would have

become of him if he had not been near the ocean” (Gherman #5). Like every child, Adams had

to go to school. He was a rough child to deal with in class because he could not sit still, and

received many a reprimand for his restlessness. Ansel hated school because he was cooped up,

unable to go to his beloved outdoors. Adams’s parents took him out of the public education

system and started tutoring him at home. He received English tutoring from his Aunt, who was a
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permanent resident in the Adams household and studied French, algebra, and classic English

literature from his ever-so-caring father.

During this time, at around age twelve, Ansel started to plunk around on the family piano,

and this eventually developed into a real talent. Ansel taught himself how to read the music,

memorized the famous European pieces by the famous composers like Bach, Chopin, and

Beethoven. Ansel became so talented that he thought for a long, long time that he was going to

be a concert pianist for his career choice. Little did he know that in the beautiful mountains, he

would find another talent that would arise to be his true calling.

When Ansel was around thirteen or fourteen he read about the Yosemite Valley in one of

the novels he was reading and really wanted to visit the as their next vacation spot. He asked his

parents only to receive a flat no. In his ever persistent way, Ansel pleaded with them, read

passages describing the majestic cliffs and plunging gorges to them, and showing photographs.

Finally they caved. When they arrived, Ansel’s parents gave him a Box Brownie—his first

camera. “Adams’s first photographs, taken at the age of 14 when he went with his family to

Yosemite National Park, were the beginning of a lifelong interest in recording nature and in

conservation of wilderness lands” (“Ansel Adams: Inspiration”).

Adams loved Yosemite so much that “He spent substantial time there every year from

1916 until his death” (Turnage). In 1921 Ansel, at the age of 19, went again to Yosemite and

met the love of his life—Virginia Best. Virginia, age 17, was the daughter of Harry Best who

owned a little gift shop within the Yosemite Park. “The two shared a passion for the outdoors

and for classical music” (“People and Events: Virginia”). With Ansel’s tremendous talent at the

piano and Virginia’s gorgeous contralto voice, the two had a very long courtship until Ansel
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asked Virginia to marry him, broke the engagement off, and then set it back up again. “The

wedding took place three days later, on January 2, 1928” (ibid.). “Virginia wore a black dress,

because it was the best one she owned, and there was no time to purchase a wedding gown” and

“Ansel wore a coat and tie, knickers, and basketball shoes” (ibid.).

Around the 1920’s, Ansel first began his professional photography career, which took off

because of many influential people. He hiked the beautiful mountains, took photographs, and

developed them in a home-made darkroom. Seeking some profit from his photographs, he went

to a man named Albert Bender. “Literally the day after they met, Bender set in motion the

preparation and publication of Adams’ first portfolio, Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras”

(Turnage). “Bender’s friendship, encouragement, and tactful financial support changed Adams’s

life dramatically” (ibid.). Without Alfred Bender’s help, Adams would not have come out into

the artist’s circle as fast as he did.

With his new-found success, Ansel traveled to New York and met the famous

photographer, Alfred Stieglitz. “[Alfred Stieglitz] was impressed by Adams’s portfolio”

(“People and Events: Ansel”). “‘These,’ [Stieglitz] said, ‘are some of the finest photographs I

have ever seen’” (ibid.). “Stieglitz promised Adams a one-person exhibit at ‘An American

Place’…” (ibid.). Among this circle of Ansel’s influential colleagues of Albert Bender and

Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand played an enormous part. Paul Strand practiced what was called

straight photography. Ansel, after meeting Paul Strand, “…began to pursue ‘straight

photography’, in which the clarity of the lens was emphasized, and the final print gave no

appearance of being manipulated in the camera or the darkroom” (Turnage). To make it more

simple, straight photography is when a photographer does not alter the photograph from when
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they first took it—not making it look better using a different lens or changing it in the darkroom.

Another fellow photographer was Edward Weston. Adams, Weston, and other photographers

who supported the idea of straight photography founded Group f/64. The Group f/64 Manifesto

says it “limits its members and invitational names to those who define photography as an art

form through purely photographic methods” (“Group”) “The chief object of the Group is to

present in frequent shows what is considers the best contemporary photography of the West…”

(ibid.). Group f/64 provided an outlet for some of Ansel Adams’s work and other straight

photography supporters.

In contrast to straight photography’s ideals, there are many techniques that all

photographers use today and have used in the past to create the picture that they visualized in

their mind when they took the photograph. These techniques were “burning”, “dodging”, and

the “Zone System.” Ansel once said that “[d]odging and burning are steps to take care of

mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.”

Burning is “[g]iving additional exposure to part of the image projected on an enlarger

easel to make that area of the print darker. This is accomplished after the basic exposure by

extending the exposure time to allow additional image-forming light to strike the areas in the

print you want to darken while holding back the image-forming light from the rest of the image.

Sometimes called printing-in” (A Glossary). When a photographer is burning in their

photograph, they take a piece of light colored paper, with enough surface area to cover the area

they want to make darker, and shake it slowly to make it blend in with the rest of the photograph.

That makes the area that was exposed to the light, darker than the surface that was covered by

the piece of paper.

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Dodging is the opposite of burning in that it makes a darker area lighter. Dodging,

“Holds back the image-forming light from a part of the image projected on an enlarger easel

during part of the basic exposure time to make that area of the print lighter” (A Glossary). When

a photographer sees that one spot in his or her photograph is too dark, they have the option of

dodging their photograph. They take a small, circular piece of paper that is taped onto a thin

wire like a wand, and they wave that in the area that they want to lighten. That blends the now

lighter area with the darker area around it.

The Zone System was developed by Ansel in 1941. The Zone System is a way of

transforming a subject that one can see which is in color, to black and white, which is what the

photograph will turn out to be. “The Zone System is a method of understanding and controlling

the exposure and development of the negative, and how to vary that exposure to get the results

you want” (Roberts, Steve). Basically, Ansel needed a way of finding out how to create the

perfect shades in his photographs. He took all of the shades of the black to white spectrum, gave

them a roman numeral, and assigned them the correct sizes of lens openings (called f-numbers or

f-stops). This system helped Ansel and other photographers to come to create photographs that

were nearly perfect without having to manipulate them in the darkroom.

Ansel Adams’s photographs depicted his message of conservation—to save our earth

from pollution, human over-population, and destruction of forests. He was, and still is loved by

the artistic community. He worked very hard and was a dedicated man—“Adams’s energy and

capacity for work were simply colossal. He often labored for eighteen or more hours per day, for

days and weeks on end” (Turnage). Also, “He endlessly traveled the country in pursuit of both

the natural beauty he revered and photographed and the audiences he required” (ibid.). Ansel
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also worked hard for the environment—trying to save the earth from destruction—“Adams was

an unremitting activist for the cause of wilderness and the environment” (ibid.). Because of this,

“President Carter awarded Adams the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest

civilian honor” (ibid.) in 1980 and “[s]ix months after his death [April 22, 1984], Congress

passed legislation designating more than 200,000 acres near Yosemite as the Ansel Adams

Wilderness Area” (ibid).

As an artist’s taste and art transform or develop, many experts, enthusiasts, and whoever

critiques their work. Ansel Adams, even though he is considered a master of photography, is not

immune to such critiques. “The great French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson made the well-

known comment that ‘the world is falling to pieces and all Adams and Weston photograph is

rocks and trees’” (Turnage). Although Cartier-Bresson has a valid point, rocks and trees are not

the only things Adams photographed. In fact, Ansel photographed Japanese-American

internment camps during World War II. His photographs depicted America’s version of the

concentration camp and another kind of “profound human suffering” that could have been

prevented. Another critique came from Elliott Erwitt, an American photographer, who

commented on the quality of Ansel Adams photographs by saying, “The pictures of Robert

Frank might strike someone as being sloppy…but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel

Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams…is essentially the quality of

a postcard…..It's got to do with intention” (Erwitt, Elliott). When I see a postcard, most often

they are displaying the best features of an area, which I find very appealing. The crisp, clean

lines and contrasting composition are what catch the eyes of millions and those are what Ansel

Adams’s photographs possess. In a way, Erwitt’s statement “It’s got to do with intention” (ibid.)
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is already done in Ansel’s photographs—his intention when exposing the film is to show the

people of America the tremendous beauty that everyone should take care of and cherish. So,

Erwitt does not see the whole picture (sorry bad pun) of what Adams’s intention is.

One of Ansel Adams’s most controversial photographs, Moonrise, Hernandez, New

Mexico is one of my favorites. Here’s a little background information according to Mary
Street Alinder’s essay Ansel Adams: Some Thoughts About Ansel and About Moonrise,
Ansel Adams’s partner in publishing,

“Moonrise was made on a typical Ansel trip to the Southwest in the fall of 1941…. Driving back

to their hotel following…Ansel glanced to his left and saw a fantastic event. The sky was

illuminated by brightly-lit clouds in the east and the white crosses in the cemetery of the old

adobe church seemed to glow from within….Ansel rushed to assemble and mount the 23.5 inch

component of his Cooke Series XV lens on his 8 x 10-inch view camera loaded with Ansco

Isopan film and find the Wratten G filter. All was in place, but he could not find his Weston light

meter. He remembered that the moon reflects 250 foot candles and he based his exposure upon

that fact. He quickly computed a setting of 1/60 at f/8, but with the addition of the filter it

became 1/20 at f/8. To achieve the same exposure with greater depth of field he stopped the lens

to f/32 and released the shutter for one second. He prepared to make a second exposure for

insurance. Dramatically, the light faded forever from the foreground. Moonrise, the negative,

was far from perfect. It took me two years to convince Ansel to make a 'straight' print of

Moonrise….Moonrise was Ansel's most difficult negative of all to print. Though he kept careful

records of darkroom information on Moonrise, each time he set up the negative, he would again

establish the procedure for this particular batch of prints….Using simple pieces of cardboard,

Ansel would painstakingly burn in (darken with additional light from the enlarger) the sky,
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which was really quite pale with streaks of cloud throughout. He was careful to hold back a bit

on the moon. The mid-ground was dodged (light withheld), though the crosses have been subtly

burned in. This process took Ansel more than two minutes per print of intricate burning and

dodging. Ansel created Moonrise with a night sky, a luminous moon and an extraordinary cloud

bank that seems to reflect the moon's brilliance. Moonrise is sleight of hand. Moonrise is magic.”

Moonrise is magic—if you gaze at even a picture of the modified Moonrise, you’ll see

how amazing it is—I can only imagine what an actual print would look like (probably twice as

many times better).

In Moonrise, there is a large expanse of dark sky that seems to envelope almost the entire

photograph and a little less than half of the photograph is devoted to the small town of

Hernandez, Mexico. The whole photograph seems to be weighed down by this ominous black

sky, crushing the tiny chapel in the bottom left corner. Dominic Messiha, an owner of one of the

Moonrise prints, responds to a forum that debates over the photograph on photo.net—

“As I sit here in my office staring at Moonrise hanging up on its own wall in all its glory,

I've often pondered the same thing; what about that large amount of black in the sky? I

think it just goes to show that you have to learn the rules before you can break them, and

it[‘]s the exception to the rule that proves why the rule exists. In other words, 99% of the

time it would be ineffective to have the top 55% of your image completely black.

However, in this classic image, the black sky dwarfs the town and the graveyard and for

the viewer, conveys the loneliness, solitude and isolation of this town. The glowing

clouds on the horizon provide a brilliant division between earth and sky. The small
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amount of foreground illustrates, at least to me, the feeling of being upon the town, yet

not so close as to be within it” (Moonrise).

Messiha’s description of this magnificent photograph is right on the money, but there is

of course some opposition to these views. The general consensus between the forum’s

participants is that there is too much black sky in the photograph. I believe the black sky gives it

the dramatic feel that Adams was trying to convey, and that if that was what Ansel was thinking

of, then it should be done that way. He is the artist who took the photograph; it should be done

the way he wanted it to be.

To conclude, Ansel Adams was one of the greatest American photographers because of

his talent and what he brought to the photography table—conservation. His efforts sparked a

whole new appreciation of the country we lived in and his beautiful photographs struck a cord

with most of America.

 Artwork Discussed:

Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico.