Ansel Adams Photographer and Environmentalist

Rebecca Koonz

Photography: A History

Final Project Proposal and Bibliography

The photographer and the Enviromentalist

        Ansel Adams is known as one of the most influential photographers in not only his lifetime but in the history of photography. It has even been said that Adams helped in the movement that brought photography into the realm of fine art. Anyone who views his landscapes and nature photography can see that his style was more than purely documentary. His work with black and white photographs produced some of the more iconic images of the western America but few may know that these images helped in preserving these majestic views for the future generations who visit these magnificent sites to this day.

        Adams was not only a photographer, musician and artist but an avid environmentalist. In this paper I plan to connect Adams the famously known photographer with the preservationist. Adams created beautiful works of art from the beauty that was already surrounding us. He fought against the development of our national parks, and was an advocate for cleaner air and water; he fought for new parks to be established and for the conservation of the wilderness he photographed. I will create a profile of Adams the environmentalist and present the connections between Adams calling as an artist and his passion for protecting the uninhabited wilds he documented.

Annotated Bibliography

Adams, Ansel, and John Szarkowski. Ansel Adams at 100: A Postcard Folio Book. Boston: Little, Brown, 2001. Print.

        A thorough review of Ansel Adams best work according to curator John Szarkowski as he compiled and critically assessed in his opinion, Adams most important work throughout his career.

Ansel Adams: A Documentary. Dir. Ric Burns. PBS, 2002. Film.

        A documentary film of Adams life and career with inserts from influential individuals in the photography industry like biographer Jonathan Spaulding, John Szarkowski and from Ansel Adams himself.

Street Alinder, Mary. Ansel Adams: A Biography. 1st ed. New York: Bloomsbury, 1996. Print.

        A Biography of Ansel Adams by Mary Street Alinder who specializes in the history of photography and who was very close with Adams serving as his chief assistant in the last five years of his life. This biography is an intimate insight into the person behind the camera lens, insight into his personal life and his career.

Turnage, Robert. "Ansel Adams: The Role of the Artist in the Environmental Movement." The Ansel Adams Gallery. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.

        This article follows Adams as an environmentalist using his photography to instill the realization that our natural surroundings need to be protected and preserved. In a time when the west was becoming more and more populated Adams captured the beauty and majesty of the remaining wilderness in its entire untouched splendor.

Outline

Thesis: First Paragraph

For century’s artist have made both positive and in some cases negative contributions to society on socially conscious issues. Through art a message can be brought to the masses, especially in today’s society with the internet and the many social media platforms not to mention popular media sharing websites and applications. Beginning in the 19th century art took on a new higher purpose shining light on social issues regarding the environment, the troubles faced by the poor, the government and the overall well-being of humanity. Art became more than art for the sake of art and the self-expression of the artist and more of a tool to raise public awareness and trigger changes in the cultural and environmental conditions. Ansel Adams born in 1902 was such an artist. During his life time Adams created hundreds of beautiful photographs but few know that he was an environmentalist and used his genius with photography to bring about change and reform in how we treated the environment and aided with the creation what we now know of today as our National Parks.