Ansel Adams began his lifelong love affair with Yosemite National Park at an early age. It was there where he received his first camera, a Kodak Box Brownie, from his father during a family vacation in 1916 when he was fourteen years old. Adams said of his first visit to Yosemite Valley:
“That first impression of the valley—white water, azaleas, cool fir caverns, tall pines and stolid oaks, cliffs rising to undreamed-of heights, the poignant sounds and smells of the Sierra…was a culmination of experience so intense as to be almost painful. From that day in 1916 my life has been colored and modulated by the great earth gesture of the Sierra.”
Yosemite was also the place where he met and married his wife, Virginia Best, whose family owned the popular photographic studio in Yosemite, Best’s Studio. Incredibly skilled as a concert pianist, early on Adams attempted to balance his love of music with his increasing interest in photography and nature. He worked as a commercial photographer in Yosemite and, after Virginia’s father died, he and his wife took over operation of Best’s Studio. It was while photographing his iconic image of Monolith: The Face of Half Dome in 1927 that he felt his photographic work shift from documentary and commercial to fine art. He quickly realized that “the camera, not the piano, would shape my destiny.” While his focus turned to fine art photography, Adams continued his commercial photography to meet the demands of supporting a growing family. Balancing the need for his work for hire with the passion he felt for his creative work plagued Adams his entire life.
See the collection of 23 Ansel Adams photographs depicting the landscapes of Yosemite National Park through 2008.
© 2008
