Ansel Easton Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902. An American photographer, Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco, and originally trained to become a concert pianist. As a teenager he was a regular visitor to Yosemite National Park in California.
Ansel Adams became a professional photographer in 1927 and Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras, his first portfolio was published. In 1928 he began to work as an official photographer for the Sierra Club, which had been established to promote the preservation of the environment of the Sierra Nevada.
Ansel Adams invented a method of exposure and development called the ‘zone system’. He also founded the f/64 group devoted to taking photographs in sharp focus.
In the mid-1930s Adams moved into the Yosemite Valley and made trips throughout the Southwest with Edward Weston, Georgia O’Keeffe, and David McAlpin.
In 1940, Adams helped establish the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where, in 1944 his photographs of interned Japanese-Americans, Born Free were exhibited.
In the 1950s onwards as well as Yosemite, Adams produced portfolios featuring Alaska, Hawaii and Maine. In the 1970s Adams gave up active photography. Instead he revised his Basic Photo-Books series on technique, and published books of his life’s work.
Ansel Adams died in 1984.