Ansel Adams + Photos = Awareness

Today was the birthday of Ansel Adams, the American photographic artist. Born in San Francisco, Nature made an impression on Adams at an early age. The Earthquake of 1906 in that California city, threw the lad against a brick wall, fracturing his nose. Never repaired, the nose remained crooked for the rest of his life.

Adams almost became a professional pianist before turning to photography full time. He authored numerous books about photography, including his trilogy of technical instruction manuals (The Camera, The Negative and The Print) and is credited, with Fred Archer, of creating the zone system technique. Adams also pioneered the idea of visualization of the finished print based upon the measured light values in the scene being photographed. But it was his combining the artistry of his photography with his love of the California environment that Ansel Adams made his mark on the American conscience.

Adams became a member of the Sierra Club at age 17. He was a life long member and became its president. It was his photographic essays on the Sierra Nevada Mountains that he had climbed as a boy that focused the public’s awareness on the real possibility of losing huge chunks of American wilderness to development. Like Al Gore today, it was Adams, through his use of the public media that brought the public’s pressure to bear on local and national politicians.

The incredibly beautiful black and white photography that were printed in his books and distributed around the world in magazines like Life, plus his impassioned testimony before the American Congress resulted in Congress designating the Sequoia and Kings Canyon as national parks in 1940. During World War II Adams worked on creating epic photographic murals for the Interior Department. Adams was an opponent of the Japanese American Internment that occurred after the Pearl Harbor attack. He requested permission to visit the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California. The resulting photo-essay first appeared in a Museum of Modern Art exhibit, and later was published as Born Free and Equal: Photographs of the Loyal Japanese-Americans at Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, California. In 1980, among his many achievements, Ansel Adams was awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, The Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The trail blazed by Adams of letting the environment speak for itself through the media continues today. The issue of Global Warming has gained strength in the public’s awareness because of movies like “An Inconvenient Truth”. Like the photos of Adams 75 years ago, the movie has helped to move our legislators to face the issue at hand. This time it is not part of the American West, but the planet Earth, as we knew it.