Ansel Adams, certainly the best known and probably the most popular photographer in the world, has inspired millions of people with his spectacular photographs of natural scenes. An incredibly energetic man with a passion for excellence, he made more than 40,000 negatives, signed 10,000 fine prints, showed his work in over five hundred exhibitions worldwide, and sold over one million copies of his books in a career that spanned almost seventy years. From the beginning, carefully controlled, top-quality printing, as well as a focus on the unspoiled natural world, were the trademarks of Adams’s legendary style.

Ansel Adams, certainly the best known and probably the most popular photographer in the world, has inspired millions of people with his spectacular photographs of natural scenes. An incredibly energetic man with a passion for excellence, he made more than 40,000 negatives, signed 10,000 fine prints, showed his work in over five hundred exhibitions worldwide, and sold over one million copies of his books in a career that spanned almost seventy years. From the beginning, carefully controlled, top-quality printing, as well as a focus on the unspoiled natural world, were the trademarks of Adams’s legendary style.

Two key events occurred in Adams’s life, without which he may well have pursued his love of music and become a concert pianist. At the age of fourteen, on vacation with his family at Yosemite National Park, he experienced the Sierra Nevada mountains for the first time. He instantly fell in love with their majesty and sheer physical beauty, and returned there at least once every year of his life. The other incident occurred when Adams was twenty-eight. While visiting Taos, New Mexico, he saw the work of the photographer Paul Strand. Strand’s images convinced him, that through photography--which at that time was not generally respected as a fine art--he could creatively express his most profound spiritual sentiments.

One of Adams’s most enduring legacies as an artist is his conviction that beauty is indistinguishable from truth. He became a political activist, fighting for the preservation of the wilderness that so inspired him, in the hope that future generations would also have a chance to love and explore the natural world. Teacher, artist, mountaineer and environmentalist, Ansel Adams developed his photographic skill to near perfection, and offered in his photographs a world resonant with the "Whitmanesque" aspect of America, optimistic, celebratory and perhaps ideal in its magnificence, yet not, after all, so unlike the grandeur of our own.

INTRODUCTION

PORTRAITS ANDCLOSE’UPS 

CANYONS AND CAVERNS

MOUNTAINS AND SKIES

INDIAN LIFE, PAST AND PRESENT 

LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS