Ansel Adams was one of the masters of photography of the 20th century, a founding father of landscape photography and a revolutionary in terms of ideas and technique.
The love for the environment that surrounds him starts from his childhood. In 1906, in fact, San Francisco was hit by a terrible earthquake. This event will profoundly affect the soul of Ansel Adams, who will end up giving in constantly to the charm of the space that surrounds him.
From a very young age, the photographer shows a deep attachment to the nature of his land, the American Wilderness, which he learns to know during his first trips to Yosemite National Park, which will influence his entire career as a photographer and from which will be born his idea of photography: the sublime spectacle of nature without any need for artifice. This is his beginning, the spark that ignites everything. The love for landscapes and nature as a whole will be a constant, together with the passion for black and white photography.
Photography as an Expression of Reality
The intuition to present nature as it is is the starting point for the foundation of the Group f/34, promoter of a photographic language marked by purity and modernism. Founded in 1932, it represents one of the most important moments in the career of Ansel Adams, which will be present in other leading elements of photography of the time: Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston and Willard Van Dyke. The name of the group indicates the opening of the diaphragm in order to obtain the greatest possible depth of field, that is the absolute sharpness of the image.
In addition to photographs, his research work is also fundamental: he invented the so-called zonal system, a technique to have greater control of exposure in the darkroom, and published three important technical manuals: “The Negative”, “The Camera” and “The Print”.
Ansel Adams is rightly considered the pioneer of Straight photography, in which it is very important to leave the photograph intact, without subjecting it to unnecessary digital manipulation. He believes in a pure and uncontaminated photography, just like the rural areas he loves to tell through images. Hence the use of precise and sharp black and white, which makes of essentiality its richness. The photographers of this movement are strongly opposed to those belonging to the current of Pictorialism, seen as a true simulation of painting.
Over the years, the photographs taken by Ansel Adams became an important testimony to bring to light some issues related to the environment: commercialization, mass tourism and aggressive construction. Adams’ empathic eye restores the beauty of the wild nature that dominated the American Wilderness, undermined, however, by the destructive action of man. For him, photographing is not only an art, but also a means of expressing his love and concern for the environment. In fact, he enrolled in the “Sierra Club“, one of the oldest American environmental organizations, first becoming its official photographer and then managing its administration.
Black and white as an artistic choice
What Ansel Adams wants to convey through his photography is the emotionality of nature, in its deepest essence. Black and white, in this sense, is more effective than color in capturing this essence. This technique focuses on the geometry of the figures, on the simplicity of the contrast between light and shadow and between light and dark. His black and white images are not realistic documents of nature, but an intensification of the psychological experience of the beauty of nature.
The images of Ansel Adams have become real symbols, icons of wild America that make their author not just a simple photographer, but a real communicator able to instill in the viewer, as if he were looking at them himself, the emotional aspect that these places are able to offer.
Images taken from: “Nikon School”
Mariachiara Proietti Di Fulvio
