The Importance Of Photography In Ansel Adams's Life

Although music and the piano were a major part of Adams’ life, there was one thing that would play an even bigger part in his life and become his career, photography. In the summer of 1916, his family set out for a short visit to Yosemite. Once they arrived, it was practically “love at first sight”. His father gave him a Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie camera to take pictures of the sights he enjoyed so much. This became the start of a new era of his life. He raced from one side of the valley to the other, shooting everything in sight. He wanted to capture the beauty of nature and of everything around him. He was disappointed in the way the snapshots turned out because they didn’t convey the feeling and emotion of everything that he had seen in person. He began to learn everything he could about photography, the process behind it and even how to develop his own negatives. He read photography magazines, visited art exhibits and attended camera club meetings. In the years following, he spent his time split between his music and Yosemite. The next year when he went to Yosemite, he brought a tripod with a better camera, as well as knowledge of photography (Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film).
Ansel Adams employed many different techniques while photographing his beloved landscapes. He enjoyed using large-format
He felt that color could be quite distracting, which takes attention away from the “bigger picture” and what he was trying to convey. He stated that he could get “a far greater sense of “color” through a well-planned and executed black and white image than [he had] ever achieved with color photography” (Wikipedia Contributors). When I was researching Adams’ work, I ran across some of his landscapes in color. I was absolutely blow away. I felt that they conveyed more of an emotional connection with me, rather than the black and white