{"id":294805,"date":"2025-02-05T21:36:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T21:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/05\/ansel-adams-pieces-of-history\/"},"modified":"2025-02-05T21:36:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T21:36:22","slug":"ansel-adams-pieces-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/05\/ansel-adams-pieces-of-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Ansel Adams \u2013 Pieces of History"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Join us for our next #ArchivesHashtagParty, #ArchivesLandscape, taking place on Friday, February 7, 2025, on Instagram and X. Today we\u2019re sharing an update to Vincent Bartholomew\u2019s 2019 post on perhaps one of the greatest landscape photographers of all time: Ansel Adams.<\/em><\/p>\n

A keen landscape photographer, Ansel Adams is best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West. Through his work, Adams contributed to the environmental conservation movement, developed new methods of photography and image making, and secured photography\u2019s institutional legitimacy.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
\u201cEvening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park,\u201d Montana, by Ansel Adams, 1941. National Archives Identifier 519861<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Adams was born on February 20, 1902, in San Francisco, California, the only child of Charles Hitchcock Adams and Olive Bray. His grandfather founded and built a prosperous lumber business. Adams was a hyperactive and sickly child with few friends. However, his childhood home had a splendid view of the Golden Gate, where he learned and enjoyed the beauty of nature from an early age. The Golden Gate strait connects the San Francisco Bay with the Pacific Ocean. The Golden Gate Bridge was not built until 1937, so Adams\u2019s view of the bay and ocean was unobstructed.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
The Golden Gate before the bridge, by Ansel Adams, 1932. (Ansel Adams Gallery)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

In 1906, when Adams was nearly four years old, the San Francisco earthquake hit. While he was unharmed by the initial shock, an aftershock threw him to the ground and broke his nose, distinctly marking him for life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adams\u2019s love of nature was nurtured in the Golden Gate, but his life, in his words was \u201ccolored and modulated by the great earth gesture\u201d of Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada. During his first trip to Yosemite in 1916, his father gave him his first camera, an Eastman Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie. Yosemite Valley and the Sierra became a career- and life-altering place for Adams and is where he did some of his best work.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cHalf Dome, Apple Orchard, Yosemite,\u201d California by Ansel Adams, 1933. National Archives Identifier\u00a0520018<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

When Adams was 12, after being dismissed from several private schools for being restless and inattentive, his father removed him from school. For the next two years, he was tutored and educated by his father and aunt Mary, who raised him to follow Ralph Waldo Emerson\u2019s direction \u201cto live a modest, moral life guided by social responsibility to man and nature.\u201d He eventually resumed his formal education at Mrs. Kate M. Wilkins Private School, where he graduated the eighth grade on June 8, 1917.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1919 Adams joined the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club is an environmental organization based out of San Francisco and founded by Scottish-American preservationist\u00a0John Muir<\/a>. Traditionally associated with the Progressive Movement, the club was one of the first large-scale environmental preservation organizations in the world. The Sierra Club was vital to Adams\u2019s early success.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cMonolith, The Face of Half Dome,\u201d by Ansel Adams, 1927. (Ansel Adams Gallery)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Each summer, the club conducted a month-long High Trip, usually in the Sierra Nevada, which attracted many members, including Adams. The participants hiked each day to new campsites and locations accompanied by a caravan of pack mules, cooks, and the like. In 1927, Adams took his first High Trip as a member of the Sierra Club and made his famous photograph,\u00a0Monolith, The Face of Half Dome.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later that year, with the help of\u00a0San Francisco insurance magnate and patron of arts Albert M. Bender, Adams published his first portfolio:\u00a0Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras<\/em>. This portfolio included photos taken on the High Trips with the Sierra Club. Bender\u2019s friendship, encouragement, and tactful financial support of Adams changed his life and allowed his creative energies and abilities as a photographer to blossom.<\/p>\n

Adams also photographed the American Southwest, where he worked with the grande dame of Western Literati, Mary Hunter Austin. In their limited edition book,\u00a0Taos Pueblo<\/em>, Adams moved away from the \u201cpictorial\u201d style, which involves an artistic interpretation of a photo, and moved towards \u201cstraight\u201d photography. \u201cStraight\u201d photography refers to the emphasis of the clarity of the lens, and the final print gave no appearance of being manipulated in the camera or the darkroom.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cChurch, Taos Pueblo National Historic Landmark, New Mexico, by Ansel Adams, 1941. (Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments, National Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

In 1941 Adams was contracted by the Department of the Interior (DOI) to construct a photo mural of the National Parks, Native American Reservations, and other locations managed by the DOI. As an unremitting activist for the environment, Adams knew that this was an opportunity to showcase the wilderness. During this time, Adams captured his famous photograph\u00a0The Tetons and Snake River.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cThe Tetons and Snake River,\u201d Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, by Ansel Adams, 1942. National Archives Identifier\u00a0519904<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

The image preserved such a beautiful yet informative view of nature that it\u00a0was included on the Voyager Golden Record aboard the Voyager<\/em> Spacecraft in 1977. The images selected for the\u00a0Voyager<\/em> Golden Record<\/a>\u00a0conveyed information about humans, plants, animals, and geological features of Earth to a possible alien civilization.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s grand old man of photography visited the National Archives in September 1979. Back then, the agency was known as the National Archives and Records Service (NARS). Adams spent the day in the Still Picture Branch examining prints he made four decades earlier.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Ansel Adams visits the National Archives, September 10, 1979. (Records of the National Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Ansel Adams visiting the National Archives, September 10, 1979. (Records of the National Archives) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Adams examined the prints that were his preliminary work for the DOI photo mural. These included 175 photos of National Parks, monuments, and Native Americans of the Southwest. He also revealed that he was paid $22.50 a day for his work, plus a $9 per diem. In 1979 one of his prints sold for as much as $6,250 (roughly $22,000 in 2019 dollars).<\/p>\n

Ansel Adams passed away on April 22, 1984, from cardiovascular disease in Monterey, California, at the age of 82 surrounded by his wife, two children, and five grandchildren.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter awarded Adams the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation\u2019s highest civilian honor, for \u201chis efforts to preserve this country\u2019s wild and scenic areas, both in film and on earth. Drawn to the beauty of nature\u2019s monuments, he is regarded by environmentalists as a monument himself, and by photographers as a national institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some of Adams\u2019s photographs may still be under copyright, Adams\u2019s 1941-42 photographs of the National Parks, Monuments, and Native Americans of the Southwest are in the public domain and are available in the\u00a0National Archives Catalog.<\/a>\u00a0For more information visit our\u00a0<\/em>research page<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on Ansel Adams.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
\u201cYellowstone Falls,\u201d Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, by Ansel Adams, 1941. National Archives Identifier 519993<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
View with Shadowed Ravine, \u201cGrand Canyon from South Rim, 1941,\u201d Arizona (Vertical Orientation), by Ansel Adams. National Archives Identifier 519885<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
View of Valley from Mountain, \u201cCanyon de Chelly\u201d National Monument, Arizona, by Ansel Adams, 1942. National Archives Identifier 519852<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
\u201cDeath Valley National Monument,\u201d California, by Ansel Adams,1942. (National Archives Identifier 519853<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Learn more about Ansel Adams and his photography in our blogs:<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Join us for our next #ArchivesHashtagParty, #ArchivesLandscape, taking place on Friday, February 7, 2025, on Instagram and X. Today we\u2019re sharing an update to Vincent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":294806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}