Editing Ansel Adams (section)

==Contributions and influence==
===Landscapes of the American West===
[[File:Adams The Tetons and the Snake River.jpg|thumb|upright=2|alt=A dramatically lit black-and-white photograph depicts a large river, which snakes from the bottom right to the center left of the picture. Dark evergreen trees cover the steep left bank of the river, and lighter deciduous trees cover the right. In the top half of the frame, there is a tall mountain range, dark but clearly covered in snow. The sky is overcast in parts, but only partly cloudy in others, and the sun shines through to illuminate the scene and reflect off the river in these places.|''[[The Tetons and the Snake River]]'' (1942)<ref name="National Archives 2017" />]]

Romantic landscape artists [[Albert Bierstadt]] and [[Thomas Moran]] portrayed the [[Grand Canyon]] and Yosemite during the 19th century, followed by photographers [[Carleton Watkins]], [[Eadweard Muybridge]], and [[George Fiske]].{{Sfn |Alinder|1996| p = 33}} Adams's work is distinguished from theirs by his interest in the transient and ephemeral.<ref name="Szarkowski 2018" /> He photographed at varying times of the day and of the year, capturing the landscape's changing light and atmosphere.<ref name="Morgan 2018">{{Cite book | title = The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists | volume = 1 | last = Morgan | first = Ann Lee | date = May 24, 2018 | publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn = 978-0-19-180767-1 | chapter = Adams, Ansel | access-date = November 26, 2018 | chapter-url = http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191807671.001.0001/acref-9780191807671-e-7 | doi = 10.1093/acref/9780191807671.001.0001}}</ref><ref name="Wells 2005">{{Cite book | publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn = 978-0-19-866271-6 | last = Wells | first = Liz | title = The Oxford Companion to the Photograph | chapter = Adams, Ansel | access-date = July 22, 2018 | date = 2005 | chapter-url = http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662716.001.0001/acref-9780198662716-e-12 | doi = 10.1093/acref/9780198662716.001.0001 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont0000unse_f1h1 | editor1-last = Nicholson | editor1-first = Angela }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last = Lorenz | first = Richard | journal = Oxford Art Online | title = Adams, Ansel | format = Reference | year = 2003 | url = http://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000000436 | doi = 10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T000436 | isbn = 9781884446054 | access-date = December 2, 2018 | archive-date = December 2, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181202070532/http://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000000436 | url-status = live }}</ref>

Art critic John Szarkowski wrote, "Ansel Adams attuned himself more precisely than any photographer before him to a visual understanding of the specific quality of the light that fell on a specific place at a specific moment. For Adams the natural landscape is not a fixed and solid sculpture but an insubstantial image, as transient as the light that continually redefines it. This sensibility to the specificity of light was the motive that forced Adams to develop his legendary photographic technique."<ref>{{cite book|last=Szarkowski|first=John|title=Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art|publisher=N.Y. Graphic Society|year=1973|isbn=978-0-87070-515-1|location=New York|page=144}}</ref>

The creation of Adams's grand, highly detailed images was driven by his interest in the natural environment.<ref name="Morgan 2018" /> With increasing environmental degradation in the West during the 20th century, his photos show a commitment to conservation.<ref name="Wells 2005" /> His black-and-white photographs were not just documentation, but reflected a sublime experience of nature as a spiritual place.<ref name="Turnage 2018" />

In 1955, Edward Steichen selected Adams's ''Mount Williamson'' for the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition ''[[The Family of Man]]'',<ref>{{Cite book | editor-first = Jerry | editor-last = Mason | others = Steichen, Edward (organizer); Sandburg, Carl (writer of foreword); Norman, Dorothy (writer of added text); Lionni, Leo (book designer); Stoller, Ezra (photographer) | title = The family of man : the photographic exhibition | date = 1955 | publisher = Published for the Museum of Modern Art by Simon and Schuster in collaboration with the Maco Magazine Corporation | url = https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10809600 | access-date = August 4, 2018 | archive-date = September 18, 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190918233821/https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10809600 | url-status = live }}</ref> which was seen by nine million visitors. At {{convert|10|by|12|ft}}, his was the largest print in the exhibition, presented floor-to-ceiling in a prominent position as the backdrop to the section "Relationships",<ref>Sollors, Werner (2018) "''The Family of Man'': Looking at the Photographs Now and Remembering a Visit in the 1950s" in {{cite book | editor1 = Hurm, Gerd | editor2 = Reitz, Anke | editor3 = Zamir, Shamoon | title = The family of man revisited : photography in a global age | date = 2018 | publisher = London I.B.Tauris | isbn = 978-1-78672-297-3}}</ref> as a reminder of the essential reliance of humanity on the soil. However, despite its striking and prominent display, Adams expressed displeasure at the "gross" enlargement and "poor" quality of the print.<ref>{{cite book | author1 = Sandeen, Eric J | title = Picturing an exhibition : the family of man and 1950s America | year = 1995 | publisher = University of New Mexico Press | edition = 1st | pages = 47, 59, 169 | isbn = 978-0-8263-1558-8}}</ref>

===Group f/64===
{{Main|Group f/64}}
In 1932, Adams helped form the anti-pictorialist Group f/64, a loose and relatively short-lived association of like-minded "straight" or "pure" photographers on the West Coast whose members included Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham. The modernist group favored sharp focus—f/64 being a very small aperture setting that gives great depth of field on large-format view cameras—contact printing, precisely exposed images of natural forms and found objects, and the use of the entire tonal range of a photograph.<ref name="Turnage 2018" /><ref name="Szarkowski 2018" /><ref name="Morgan 2018" /><ref>{{Cite book | publisher = Philip's | isbn = 978-0-19-954609-1 | title = World Encyclopedia | chapter = Adams, Ansel | access-date = November 26, 2018 | chapter-url = http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199546091.001.0001/acref-9780199546091-e-96 | doi = 10.1093/acref/9780199546091.001.0001 | year = 2004 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/worldencyclopedi00oxfo }}</ref><ref name="Soccio 2016">{{cite web | last = Soccio | first = Lisa | title = Ansel Adams | work = International Center of Photography | access-date = July 30, 2018 | date = March 3, 2016 | url = https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/ansel-adams | archive-date = November 30, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181130071849/https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/ansel-adams | url-status = live }}</ref>

Adams wrote the group's manifesto for their exhibition at the [[De Young Museum]]:
{{blockquote|Group {{f/}}64 limits its members and invitational names to those workers who are striving to define photography as an art-form by a simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods. The Group will show no work at any time that does not conform to its standards of pure photography. Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of [technique], composition or ideas, derivative of any other art-form. The production of the "Pictorialist," on the other hand, indicates a devotion to principles of art, which are directly related to painting and the graphic arts. The members of Group {{f/}}64 believe that Photography, as an art-form, must develop along lines defined by the actualities and limitations of the photographic medium, and must always remain independent of ideological conventions of art and aesthetics that are reminiscent of a period of culture antedating the growth of the medium itself.{{Sfn | O'Toole|2010}}}}

The f/64 school met with opposition from the pictorialists, particularly [[William Mortensen]], who called their work "hard and brittle".{{sfn|Alinder|1996|pp=76–77}}<ref name="Lovejoy 2014">{{cite news | last1 = Lovejoy | first1 = Bess | title = The Photographer Who Ansel Adams Called the Anti-Christ | url = https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/photographer-who-ansel-adams-called-anti-christ-180953525/ | access-date = February 28, 2019 | work = Smithsonian | date = December 4, 2014 | archive-date = March 27, 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190327184314/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/photographer-who-ansel-adams-called-anti-christ-180953525/ | url-status = live }}</ref> Adams disliked the work of Mortensen and disliked him personally, referring to him as the "Anti-Christ". The purists were friends with prominent historians, and their influence led to the exclusion of Mortensen from histories of photography.<ref name="Lovejoy 2014" /><ref>{{cite news | last1 = Appleford | first1 = Steve | title = Pictorialist William Mortensen, reviled by Ansel Adams, gets new respect | url = https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-william-mortensen-20150311-story.html | access-date = February 28, 2019 | work = Los Angeles Times | date = March 11, 2015 | archive-date = February 28, 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190228065938/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-william-mortensen-20150311-story.html | url-status = live }}</ref>

Adams later developed this purist approach into the Zone System.<ref name="Soccio 2016" />

===The Zone System===
{{Main|Zone System}}
[[File:Looking across lake toward mountains, "Evening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park," Montana., 1933 - 1942 - NARA - 519861.jpg|thumb|upright=1.75|alt=A black-and-white photograph shows a large, still lake extending horizontally off the frame and halfway up vertically, reflecting the rest of the scene. In the distance, a mountain range can be seen, with a gap in the center and one faint smaller mountain in between. The sky is cloudy and large dark clouds rest at the very top of the frame.|''[[Evening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park]]'' (1942)<ref>{{cite archive | first = Ansel | last = Adams | item = Looking across Lake toward Mountains, "Evening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park," Montana | item-url = https://catalog.archives.gov/id/519861 | item-id = 519861 | fonds =  | series = Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments, 1941–1942 | file =  | box =  | collection = Record Group 79: Records of the National Park Service, 1785–2006 | collection-url = https://catalog.archives.gov/id/408 | repository =  | institution = National Archives at College Park | accession =}}</ref>]]

While Adams and portrait photographer Fred Archer were teaching at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, around 1939–1940, they developed the Zone System for managing the photographic process,<ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Dowdell | first1 = John J. | last2 = Zakia | first2 = Richard D. | title = Zone systemizer for creative photographic control, Part 1 | publisher = Morgan & Morgan | year = 1973 | page = [https://archive.org/details/zonesystemizerfo00dowd/page/6 6] | isbn = 978-0-87100-040-8 | url = https://archive.org/details/zonesystemizerfo00dowd/page/6 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Robinson | first = Edward M. | title = Crime scene photography | publisher = Academic Press | year = 2007 | page = 72 | isbn = 978-0-12-369383-9 | quote = ...Ansel Adams' zone system, formulated in 1939–1940.}}</ref> which was based on [[sensitometry]], the study of the light-sensitivity of photographic materials and the relationship between exposure time and the resulting density on a negative. The Zone System provides a calibrated scale of brightness, from Zone 0 (black) through shades of gray to Zone X (white). The photographer can take light readings of key elements in a scene and use the Zone System to determine how the film must be exposed, developed, and printed to achieve the desired brightness or darkness in the final image.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Lambrecht | first1 = Ralph W. | last2 = Woodhouse | first2 = Chris | title = Way beyond monochrome : advanced techniques for traditional black & white photography including digital negatives and hybrid printing | date = 2010 | publisher = Taylor & Francis | isbn = 978-0-240-81625-8 | pages = 105–110 | edition = 2nd}}</ref> Although it originated for black-and-white sheet film, the Zone System can be applied to images captured on roll film, both black-and-white and color, negative and reversal, and to digital photography.<ref>{{cite news | last1 = Frye | first1 = Michael | title = Zone System for Landscape Photography | url = https://www.outdoorphotographer.com/tips-techniques/nature-landscapes/the-digital-zone-system/ | access-date = March 5, 2019 | work = Outdoor Photographer | date = February 9, 2010 | archive-date = March 11, 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230311120745/https://www.outdoorphotographer.com/tips-techniques/nature-landscapes/the-digital-zone-system/ | url-status = dead }}</ref>

===Photography department at {{Abbr|MoMA|Museum of Modern Art}}===
In 1940, with trustee David H. McAlpin and curator [[Beaumont Newhall]], Adams helped establish the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.<ref name="Soccio 2016" /> {{Abbr|MoMA|Museum of Modern Art}} was the first major American art museum to establish a photography department.{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010}}<ref>{{Cite journal | year = 2013 | doi = 10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B2230305| isbn = 978-0-19-977378-7 | title = Adams, Ansel Easton | journal = Benezit Dictionary of Artists }}</ref> Adams acted as McAlpin and Newhall's primary advisor;{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 14}} [[Peter Galassi]], the chief curator of the department in later years, said "Adams's dedication and boundless energy were vital to the creation of the department and to its programs in its early years."<ref>{{Citation | publisher = Museum of Modern Art | title = The Museum of Modern Art in Queens Presents Last Chance to View Ansel Adams Centennial Exhibition | date = July 9, 2003 | url = https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_387051.pdf | access-date = December 2, 2018 | archive-date = December 2, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181202112652/https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_387051.pdf | url-status = live }}</ref> For those who had sought institutional recognition for photography as art, the founding of the department was an important moment, marking the medium's recognition as a subject equal to painting and sculpture.{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 10}}

On December 31, 1940, the department opened its first exhibition, ''Sixty Photographs: A Survey of Camera Esthetics'',<ref name="MoMA 2018">{{cite web | title = Sixty Photographs: A Survey of Camera Esthetics | work = The Museum of Modern Art | access-date = December 1, 2018 | url = https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2089 | archive-date = December 2, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181202112649/https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2089 | url-status = live }}</ref> which resembled large survey exhibitions that Adams and Newhall had previously mounted independently.{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 174}} The exhibition took aesthetic quality as a guiding principle,{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 10}} a philosophy that ran counter to that of many writers and critics, who argued that the medium's more vernacular use as a means of communication should be more fully represented.{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 13}} Photographer [[Ralph Steiner]], writing for ''[[PM (newspaper)|PM]]'', remarked "on the whole it [MoMA] seems to regard photography as soft music at high tea rather than as a jazz at a beefsteak supper."{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 180}} Tom Maloney, publisher of ''U.S. Camera'', wrote that the exhibition was "very choice, very pristine, very small, very ultra."{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 181}} According to Newhall, the exhibition was meant to showcase artistic excellence and "not to define but to suggest the possibilities of photographic vision."<ref name="MoMA 2018" />

===Environmental protection===
In his autobiography, Adams expressed his concern about Americans' loss of connection to nature in the course of industrialization and the exploitation of the land's natural resources. He stated, "We all know the tragedy of the [[Dust Bowl|dustbowls]], the cruel unforgivable erosions of the soil, the depletion of fish or game, and the shrinking of the noble forests. And we know that such catastrophes shrivel the spirit of the people... The wilderness is pushed back, man is everywhere. Solitude, so vital to the individual man, is almost nowhere."{{Sfn|Adams|Alinder|1985|pp=290–291}}