Asked to name a truly great artist, most of us think of Picasso, Van Gogh, Leonardo or Rembrandt. Even now, for all the conceptual art around, the word 'artist' suggests someone in a paint-spattered smock at an easel. If photographers like Ansel Adams have anything to teach us, it is that great art does not have to be on canvas.
The early years
Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902. He was a shy child, bullied at school for his restless behaviour and for his crooked nose, broken when an aftershock of the 1906 earthquake threw him against a garden wall. He took comfort in nature, spending hours outdoors, and in music, teaching himself to play the piano and read music at 12. He began to experiment with photography at 14, after a family trip to Yosemite National Park.
Over the next decade he developed his skills, and showed and sold some of his early photos at a studio in Yosemite Valley. He later married Virginia Best, the daughter of its owner.
His first real success came in 1927 with a portfolio of black and white landscapes, 'Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras', which is still celebrated today. He had his first New York show in 1933 and published a successful book, 'Making a Photograph', in 1935. When Virginia's father died the couple inherited the Yosemite studio. Today it is the Ansel Adams Gallery, and it is still open to visitors.
Famous works
Adams became known for striking black and white landscapes of the American West. Most of his celebrated photographs are sweeping views of mountains, tree lines, lakes and dramatic skies. Moody, high-contrast pictures such as 'Moon and Half Dome' and 'Aspens' are particular favourites.
He also made close-up still lifes such as 'Rose and Driftwood' and candid portraits such as 'Georgia O'Keeffe and Orville Cox', not to mention the odd self-portrait.
Although best known for black and white, Adams took many colour photographs too, though he struggled with the medium. He likened working in colour to playing an out-of-tune piano, and said he felt freer in black and white. To the untrained eye his colour work is just as beautiful.
The Zone System
Adams was influential because he was a pioneer as well as a talented photographer, fascinated by the craft and theory of the medium. At the end of the 1930s he and his friend Fred Archer developed the Zone System, a method for working out the best exposure and development for a negative.
It allowed Adams to achieve the rich, high-contrast look that made his photographs iconic. It was devised for sheet film, but many photographers still find it a useful way of thinking about exposure.
Ansel Adams the environmentalist
As his work shows, Adams loved nature. He was an influential environmentalist who campaigned tirelessly to preserve wild places such as Yosemite. Over his life he fought the over-development of national parks, argued for the protection of endangered species, and campaigned for clean air and water.
Ansel Adams in his own words
- "A good photograph is knowing where to stand."
- "A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words."
- "You don't take a photograph, you make it."
- "There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs."
- "We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium."
- "Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment."
- "There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."
Photography today
Today anyone with a smartphone is a photographer, and with apps like Instagram it is easier than ever to crop, filter and edit a snap into a small masterpiece.
The question is whether something has been lost. With so many devices to keep photos on, many people see no need to print them. In Adams's day that was unthinkable. A photograph could not be seen at all until the negative had been taken into a darkroom and carefully developed and printed.
At EasyFrame we would like to see more people printing their photos and hanging them at home and at work. That is why we have made it easy to order made-to-measure picture frames, mounts and multi-aperture frames online.
Ordering with EasyFrame
If you have bought a photograph, or printed some of your own, visit our picture frames and mounts page. There you can design your own frame and mount, choosing the colours and materials that suit your photograph.