Ansel Easton Adams (1902-1984) was an American photographer credited with developing the ‘zone system technique‘ (a method of concentrating light on negatives to control the look of finished pictures) and the ‘theory of visualization‘ or ‘previsualization’ (the act of measuring a scene’s light to imagine a finished photo). Basicaly, he captured nature in black and white and became famous for his photo series of the Yosemite Valley in California. More than that, he became an environmentalist, and his photographs are a record of what many national parks were like.
Yosemite Valley - California
He also wrote technical books defining and developing his theories, and later on, many photoalbums were published in his memory. Some of these are:

# The Camera
# The Negative
# The Print
% Born Free and Equal
% Polaroid Land Photography
% Ansel Adams: In Color
% Photographs of the Southwest
% The National Park Photographs
% America’s Wilderness
% Ansel Adams: The Spirit of Wild Places

Ansel Adams received a number of awards during his lifetime, and this is a short list of them:

  • Doctor of Arts, Harvard University
  • Doctor of Arts, Yale University
  • Conservation Service Award, Department of Interior – 1968
  • Presidential Medal of Freedom – 1980
  • Mount Ansel Adams – 1985
  • Ansel Adams Wilderness – 1985

Also, Adams was one of the founders of the magazine Aperture.

Jeffrey Pine - Sentinel Dome

Art is both love and friendship, and understanding; the desire to give…It is both the taking and giving of beauty, the turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit. – Ansel Adams, 1937

Representing the Work of Ansel Adams
The full archive of Ansel Adams’ work can be found at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona in Tucson.