Ansel Adams Biography

Ansel Adams was born on February 20, 1902. In 1916, Ansel's family took a trip to Yosemite National Park in California. Ansel was given his first camera and immediately began taking photographs. Ansel moved to Yosemite every summer, worked there, and took photographs. Ansel took thousands of nature photgraphs--mountains, trees, rivers, oceans, and wilderness. Ansel Adams developed the Zone System of photography. The Zone System is a set of techniques that allows photographers the greatest possible control over the characteristics of black and white film. For his outstanding work towards park and nature preservation, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980 from President Jimmy Carter. He died April 22, 1984.