Ansel Adams: A Brief Biography

Ansel Adams was born in February 20th, 1902 and died April 22nd, 1984. He grew up in the Western Addition of San Francisco, California to Charles Hitchcock Adams and Olive Bray Adams. Adams was a very hyperactive child and was prone to frequent sickness and hypochondria. When Ansel turned 12 he became interested in piano. As the next 12 years thinking it would be music, but by 1920 he gave up music for photography. In 1916 him and his family went to the Yosemite National Park. "The splendor of Yosemite burst upon us and it was glorious... One wonder after another descended upon us... There was light everywhere... A new era began for me." His father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Brownie box camera. At age 17, Adams joined the Sierra Club, …show more content…
In the 1930s, Adams began to use his photographs in the cause of wilderness preservation. He was inspired by the increasing fault of Yosemite Valley by commercial development, including a pool hall, bowling alley, golf course, shops, and automobile traffic. He created a limited-edition book in 1938, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail. His book and his testimony before Congress played a huge role, and Congress designated the area as a National Park in 1940. “Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space. I know of no sculpture, painting or music that exceeds the compelling spiritual command of the soaring shape of granite cliff and dome, of patina of light on rock and forest, and of the thunder and whispering of the falling, flowing waters. At first the colossal aspect may dominate; then we perceive and respond to the delicate and persuasive complex of nature.”-Ansel Adams, The Portfolios Of Ansel Adams. Then after the book he went back to