Ansel Adams: Compositions in Nature

A meta study on one of our greatest photographers

Introduction

On December 22, 2021, I traveled to the Virginia Fine Arts Museum (VFAM) in Richmond to see the Ansel Adams exhibition titled “Compositions in Nature”.

I viewed the Master’s photos – all in black-and-white – but to me they seemed to be in color.  It was a strange experience. The blacks seemed to be dark Blue. The Aspens shown below seemed to have green trunks. My eyes were playing tricks on me. What impressed me the most was that every photograph was in sharp focus – from foreground to background.

So here is an oxymoron for you. Take color photos of Adam’s black-and-white photo prints, and convert them to black-and-white. I used my Leica M10-R and a Leica 50mm Summilux lens to take the photos. They were taken with a color sensor and converted to black-and-white using the DxO software. Clearly, my images are not the same as the Master’s, but I did want to share them with you, the reader.

The VFAM allows photography without flash, so these images were taken with permission of the VFAM. All photos are copyrighted by Ansel Adams .

Unfortunately, there was no catalog for this exhibit. However, I recently researched and found an Adams scholar, Dr. Rebecca Senf of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona. The very evening the exhibition opened to the public, Dr. Senf gave an hour-long talk discussing her research into Adams’ early years as he was perfecting his photographic style. Here is a link to the YouTube video of her presentation. Dr. Senf has published a book, mentioned in her talk, entitled “Making a Photographer: The Early Work of Ansel Adams”. Here is a link to her book at Amazon.com.

Photos from the Exhibition

Here are some of the photos from the exhibition.

Aspens, New Mexico

Aspens, Northern New Mexico, ca. 1958; The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, CA, 2002.13.3 Frozen Lake and Cliffs, the Sierra Nevada, Sequoia National Park, California, 1932; The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, CA, 2002.13.14

The commentary for these photographs reads:
Trees, aspens in particular, appear throughout Adams’s photography. Often set amid grand panoramic views, they help define the scale of a photograph. Yet, here a group of truncated trees seems to emerge from a murky, darkness, like lithe bodies approaching the viewer. Adams’s careful selection of the tonal values, which he identified and bore out in the darkroom before he made the photograph, enliven this image of tree trunks.

Oak Tree, Snowstorm, Yosemite National Park, California, 1948; The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, CA, 2002.13.31

Vernal Fall, Yosemite Valley, California, ca. 1948; The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, CA, 2002.13.47

The commentary for this photo reads:

From a young age, Ansel Adams was familiar with the valleys, summits, and, of course, the majestic waterfalls of Yosemite. The Vernal Falls is a magnificent cascade along the Merced River, which Adams photographed repeatedly over his long career. Not surprisingly, Adams considered a waterfall a dramatic moment in the otherwise languid music of the waterway. He stated,

“A waterfall is but an episode in the life of a whole singing stream, pouring from the high stone fountains of the summit peaks to the blending with the greater river below.”

Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California 1927, printed ca 1980; The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, CA, 2002.13.26

The Golden Gate before the Bridge, San Francisco, California, 1932; The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding CA, 2002.13.33

Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, October 31, 1941; The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, CA, 2002.13.28

Comments made by Ansel Adams when he came upon this scene

Ansel Adams recounted the precise events that led him to create this iconic photograph:

When I took my moonrise picture, the one with the church and the graveyard at Hernandez, New Mexico, I was driving back to Santa Fe from the Chama Valley and I saw this wonderful scene out of the window. The reaction was so strong I practically drove off the road. I got out the tripod and camera, took the front part of the lens off, screwed it on the back of the shutter and began composing and focusing. All the time I was trying to think of what I’d have to do to make the picture, I couldn’t find my exposure meter, but I knew the moon’s luminance was 250 candles per square foot and that was placed on Zone VIl of the exposure scale. That gave me a shutter speed of a sixtieth of a second at f/8 with a film speed of ASA 64. The filter factor was 3X, so that made the basic exposure a twentieth of a second. I exposed for a long second at f/32, made one picture, and while I was turning the holder around and pulling out the slide to make a duplicate, the sunlight went off the crosses. I got the picture by about 15 seconds!

We will learn more about the Zone System a bit later in this note.

Mount Williamson, The Sierra Nevada, from Manzanar, California, 1945; The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, CA, 2002.13.29

Half Dome, Merced River, Winter, Yosemite National Park, California, ca.1938; The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding CA, 2002.13.18

Half Dome, Cottonwood Trees, Yosemite Valley, California, ca.1932, printed January 1979 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Andrea Grey Stillman, 2018.586

The commentary associated with these images is the following:

Adams’s love of nature and photography was awakened during his first family vacation to Yosemite when he was fourteen. He took his first photographs during that trip, and he returned yearly for the rest of his life. Adams made this image from the Old Sentinel Bridge near Yosemite Chapel in 1938 with an 8 x 10-inch view camera.

Committed to caring for the natural world, Adams would become an important part of the American conservation movement as his shared elusive views of nature with a wider public, fueling interest in protecting those remarkable landscapes. In recognition of Adams’s lifelong advocacy, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.

Monument Valley, Arizona, 1958; The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, CA, 2002.13.27

The Zone System

Adams perfected the Zone System, a photographic technique that allows the photographer to have precise control over the tonal values in the final print; from the blackest black to the whitest white. Working in the analogue mode of photography with large-format negatives, the Zone System fulfilled Adams’s interest in visualizing what a photograph would look like before the camera shutter ever opened.

The Zone System was created by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer and has a Wikipedia Page. Here is a photo I took at the exhibition.

The Zone System used by Ansel Adams

Conclusions

Exhibitions such as this are feast for the eyes, and one can learn so much about the artist, in this case Ansel Adams. In my research, I discovered that Adams also shot in color and the Zone System has been adapted for color photography.

The photos below show Ansel Adams and his wife, Virginia, at home, a photo of the Master at work atop his station wagon, and the banner for the exhibition.

Alan Ross, American, Born 1948; Ansel and Virginia Adams at Home, Carmel, California, ca. 1975; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Andrea Gray Stillman, 2018.580

Ansel Adams at Work

Banner for the Ansel Adams Exhibition