Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was born on February 20, 1902 in California, USA, to a wealthy American family. An only child, shy and very active, he had difficulty adapting to classical schooling, so they decided to have him continue his studies at home.

During his childhood he lived in an isolated house in the middle of the dunes and near the sea. From an early age, a very important relationship was established between him and nature.

The financial panic of 1907 ruined the family economy, but his parents did not give up on their efforts to give him an education in accordance with his active and highly intelligent personality. At the age of 12 he learned to play the piano and read sheet music without any help.

He received piano lessons, from which he learned discipline and structure and to which he dedicated himself body and soul for more than 12 years, it seeming that this was going to be his main occupation. At the same time, he was given his first camera, a Kodak Brownie, and began taking photographs in the Yosemite Mountains, a place he would return to again and again throughout his life and where he would take most of his photographs.

There he met his wife Virginia Best, whom he married in 1928 and with whom he would have a son and a daughter.

In 1932 he created a group with other photographers such as Paul Strand, Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston, the f/64 group, which promoted Straight photography, a type of pure and direct photography of which Ansel Adams would be a great standard-bearer.

In 1933 he met Alfred Stieglitz, a great reference for him, who helped him create his first exhibition, which was very successful. Three years later he exhibited at the MoMA in New York.

The last years of his life were devoted to popularization, he gave talks, conferences, and revealed works that he was unable to do due to overwork, etc.

He died on April 22, 1984, of heart failure.