Ansel Adams
To Ansel, photography has grown from a casual hobby to a life long profession, which he turned into an art form. Most of the credit goes to Adams for the development of making photography into an art form, along with some other creative photographers who has, as Ansel puts it, “the true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.” Adams was also an extremely dedicated conservationist and an interpreter of the nature scene whose black and white prints celebrate the force, movement, stillness, and beauty of nature unspoiled by man. Ansel Easton Adams was born on February 20, 1902 in San Francisco, California. ... Ansel always enjoyed the surroundings of natures beauty. ... Ansel took his first picture on a family vacation at Yosemite National Park the following year. ... At the time photography was only a hobby for Adams, who decided in 1920 to intensify his study of music with the hope of becoming a concert pianist. ... ” While working in Taos, New Mexico in 1930, Adams met a photographer, Paul Strand. ... Until that time Adams had been using the fashionable “pictorial”, or soft-focus, style that imitated the effects of Impressionistic painting, and he had understood composition only in terms of balance of parts and similar rules of thumb. ... Adams soon adopted the “straight photography” technique. In 1932 Adams joined Edward Weston and others in forming Group f/64. ... Even before reaching his final decision to be a professional photographer, Adams had carried out a few commissions in portraiture and in 1928 had gone to Jasper National Park in Canada as official Photographer for the Sierra Club. ... de Young Memorial Museum in 1932, he opened up the Ansel Adams Gallery for photography and other arts. ... ” In 1936 he gave Adams a one-man show at his New York City gallery, an American Place, making Adams the first young Photographer to be shown by Stieglitz since Paul Strand in 1917.