Ansel Adams Photographer, Artist & Activist
“The reason that he is as important to us as I think he is, is because he was a good artist, and on his best days he was a terrific artist, and he found some way to put together those little fragments of the world in a way that transformed them into a picture. In the same way that a poet uses the same dictionaries that the rest of us do. All the words are in there...all the words in the poem are there, they’re in alphabetical order so you can find them, and it’s just a matter of taking a few of them and putting them in the right order, and that’s all there is to it. And so why is it that some lines of poetry, some sentences grasp us, you know, grip us, and we think, ‘That’s, that’s right, that’s true, whatever…I don’t know quite what that means, but whatever it means it’s true.’ And a good picture does something like that. The best of Ansel’s are part of our memory, part of our sense of what a picture might be made out of, what it might look like and what it might ultimately be about, which is the part we can’t explain.” — John Szarkowski 📷: Ansel Adams, Death Valley, 1947. Photographed by Nancy Newhall. ©1947, Nancy Newhall, ©2021, the Estate of Beaumont and Nancy Newhall. Permission to reproduce courtesy of @scheinbaumrussek, Scheinbaum and Russek Ltd., Santa Fe, New Mexico.
15 days ago
👏👏👏
15 days ago
The world was made so much better because he existed. ❤️ I wish he was here now to continue to fight for the parks he loved so much. They really need him.
15 days ago
Ansel being a concert pianist perhaps gave him that ability, to take just twelve notes and create a masterpiece.
15 days ago
Ich wünschte ich könnte mit ihm ein Tag an diesem schönen Ort verbringen 🙃📷🤙🏻
15 days ago
All that John says is right, but Ansel was more… he was a dreamer, that rare quality often mistaken for foolishness. His ability to dream would become reality in a moment on the negative. We have forgotten how to dream. Let’s dream again.
15 days ago
Great documentary ✌️
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One of my greatest inspirations!
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👏👏👏👏👏👏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
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Brilliant
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✨
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😊🙏
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🙌
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🔥😍
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❤️
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👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Ansel Adams Photographer, Artist & Activist
Back in the day, Ansel’s fellow photographer and friend Edward Weston lived a few hours south of San Francisco, in Carmel, and Ansel often drove down the coast to visit him and his wife, Charis. On one visit he recalled, “I told Charis I was looking for a place to make a really good photograph of Edward. She said there was a big eucalyptus tree nearby that he liked.” Earlier that year Edward had photographed the tree’s “exciting roots.” When Ansel eventually moved to Carmel many years later, he built a home not far from it. In ‘Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs,’ he wrote, “At first I was not satisfied with the location and I began to explore nearby. Edward sat down at the base of the tree to await my decision.” After initially gravitating towards the picket fence, Ansel “suddenly saw the inevitable image. . . . The relatively small figure at the base of the huge tree, the convoluted roots, and the beautiful quiet light” of a foggy coastal day. “I pleaded, ‘Edward please just keep sitting there.’ I was very excited and fumbled my meter, dropped my focusing cloth and inadvertently kicked the tripod leg. Edward was amused and relaxed.” Image 1: ‘Edward Weston, Carmel Highlands, California,’ 1945. Photograph by Ansel Adams. ©️The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust Image 2: ‘Eucalyptus Tree and Roots, Carmel Highlands, California,’ 1945. Photograph by Edward Weston © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Arizona Board of Regents