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Making a Photographer: The Early Work of Ansel Adams Hardcover – Illustrated, February 18, 2020
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One of the most influential photographers of his generation, Ansel Adams (1902–1984) is famous for his dramatic photographs of the American West. Although many of Adams’s images are now iconic, his early work has remained largely unknown. In this first monograph dedicated to the beginnings of Adams’s career, Rebecca A. Senf argues that these early photographs are crucial to understanding Adams’s artistic development and offer new insights into many aspects of the artist’s mature oeuvre.
Drawing on copious archival research, Senf traces the first three decades of Adams’s photographic practice—beginning with an amateur album made during his childhood and culminating with his Guggenheim-supported National Parks photography of the 1940s. Highlighting the artist’s persistence in forging a career path and his remarkable ability to learn from experience as he sharpened his image-making skills, this beautifully illustrated volume also looks at the significance of the artist’s environmentalism, including his involvement with the Sierra Club.
Published in association with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherYale University Press
- Publication dateFebruary 18, 2020
- Dimensions8.2 x 1 x 10.2 inches
- ISBN-100300243944
- ISBN-13978-0300243949
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Editorial Reviews
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“Rebecca Senf has leveraged her unparalleled access and curious, analytic eye to bring us something completely new and interesting about one of America’s best-recognized photographers . . . shedding light on his artistic development and evolution into an environmentalist and entrepreneur.”—Elin Spring and Suzanne Révy, What Will You Remember (“Favorite Photobooks of 2020”)
“[A] revolutionary dive into one of America’s most renowned photographers.”—Bree Florence, Phoenix Home and Garden
Winner of the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize, sponsored by The Center for Cultural Landscapes at the UVA School of Architecture
“In her brilliant book, Dr. Rebecca Senf allows us to go beyond the pure beauty of Adams’s images. We are brought into a much-needed passion and complexity of his practice.”—Catherine Opie
“This is an important work that augments existing literature in both content and methodology. It will be a standard reference for anyone interested in Ansel Adams.”—Britt Salvesen, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
“Rebecca Senf brilliantly demonstrates how the first two decades of Ansel Adams’s long career—years that are often dismissed as ‘formative’ or ‘immature’—in fact, sow the seeds of the astonishing work that we now identify as ‘classic’ Adams.”—Steven Hoelscher, The University of Texas at Austin
“In this great, approachable read, Senf helps us appreciate the skills and genius of Adams, who inspired millions of Americans to visit, and to ultimately love and support, their National Parks.”—James E. Cook, CEO, Western National Parks Association
“Lavishly illustrated and painstakingly researched, Senf’s book reveals how a 14-year-old visitor to Yosemite became America’s most famous photographer and a passionate advocate for the National Parks.”—Malcolm Daniel, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Yale University Press; Illustrated edition (February 18, 2020)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0300243944
- ISBN-13 : 978-0300243949
- Item Weight : 2.69 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.2 x 1 x 10.2 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #788,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #156 in Photography Criticism & Essays (Books)
- #389 in Landscape Photography
- #475 in Individual Photographer Monographs
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
I began my career at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston where I co-curated a major exhibition of the work of Ansel Adams, drawn from the Lane Collection –at the time the largest collection of his work in private hands. The opportunity to dive deep into the research and really get to know each of the prints in the collection was a pleasure. Prior to this, I was assigned to catalogue the museum’s photography collection, a task that led me to be trained in medium identification by Kim Nichols, a conservator in the Prints, Drawings, and Photographs department. That opportunity to examine and understand the materiality of the medium gave me a deep appreciation for and curiosity about photographs as objects. I went on to do a doctoral dissertation about Ansel Adams’s early work, studying his prints in many public and private collections and getting to know him through the copious correspondence of his housed in the Ansel Adams Archive at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP). Now, as Chief Curator at CCP, it’s wonderful to be able to produce exhibitions from that archive that share with audiences the complexity, humor, sincerity, and enthusiasm of Adams that I have been fortunate to come to know first-hand.
As curator at the CCP, I work with an amazing collection of over 100,000 photographs, from which a wide range of exhibitions have been possible. I create monographic exhibitions, such as of Edward Weston (his Mexico work), Richard Avedon, Ansel Adams, and W. Eugene Smith (his LIFE magazine photo essays) and I collaborate with contemporary photographers to exhibit their work. I design thematic shows, including about Group f/64 and California pictorialism, time as captured by the medium of photography, pictures of Arizona, aerial photography (of which the Center has an amazingly strong collection), one-of-a-kind photographic objects, and most recently, LIGHT Gallery. It’s fun to think about how to use pictures to engage people to think about photography, to see the prints in new ways, and to reflect on their own experiences.
My strong interest in photographic books was cemented with the gift of a first edition of Roy DeCarava’s Sweet Flypaper of Life when I was in graduate school. I curated an exhibition drawing on the Center’s archives called Process and the Page about how photographers made books, sharing maquettes, journals, and correspondence that revealed the nitty gritty of the process. I produced two juried exhibitions of self-published books, in which the audience members were invited to touch and explore the selections in their own process of discovery. I have so enjoyed my own experience as a juror, reviewing hundreds of books, and thinking about what qualities distinguish the most exceptional publications. Each year such beautiful, inspiring, moving, and provocative books are made.
With so many archives at the Center for Creative Photography, and such a vast collection of prints, the potential for future exhibitions is limitless. The process of learning from the collection and then sharing the story that emerges is among the great pleasures of being a curator.
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In addition to being thoroughly researched and well written, the book is beautifully designed and produced—an outstanding object.
Don’t skip over the footnotes—there are many hidden gems here!
An earlier reviewer's facts are mostly correct, in a literal sense—there is in this book no mention of Ansel's Manzanar work (1942), his Fortune or Life work in the 1940s, or his large project for the University of California (1960s). But this should come as no surprise at all since the book, aside from its conclusion, spends its 200 pages before that concluding chapter examining the career and photographs of Ansel Adams up until only the late 1930s.
The book is subtitled "The Early Work of Ansel Adams," after all.
It tracks the development of Ansel Adams's mature style, through the 1920 and 1930s, sharing in detail Ansel's Parmelian Prints (his first portfolio), his photo album of the Sierra Club's 1928 to the Canadian Rockies, and images from his time in New Mexico in the 1930s.
On the way the author goes in-depth describing Ansel's time in Yosemite as an employee of the Curry Company and how that experience—shooting advertising photographs—offered him tremendous opportunities to live in and photograph Yosemite until, as Ansel's confidence and fame as a photographer grew—and as the respect accorded his work by the company seemingly diminished—he cast off that relationship, rethinking his life.
This is not a book about the entirety of Ansel's life nor even the entirety of his early life. It is instead a book that gives you a tour of the major photographic projects of Ansel Adams and a great deal about their background, tracing his artistic development.
The book ends with a conclusion focusing on his national parks projects—many of his famous images appear here—and yes, the author retells the oft-told story of the making of Moonrise, Hernandez, but disposes of the story in one paragraph, offering not only a vintage Moonrise and a later Moonrise (to compare tonalities) but a straight proof print of Moonrise in recompense.
It's a good book and here at Amazon ridiculously inexpensive as I write this.
If you are interested in Ansel Adams as a photographer this is a book to get.
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2020
An earlier reviewer's facts are mostly correct, in a literal sense—there is in this book no mention of Ansel's Manzanar work (1942), his Fortune or Life work in the 1940s, or his large project for the University of California (1960s). But this should come as no surprise at all since the book, aside from its conclusion, spends its 200 pages before that concluding chapter examining the career and photographs of Ansel Adams up until only the late 1930s.
The book is subtitled "The Early Work of Ansel Adams," after all.
It tracks the development of Ansel Adams's mature style, through the 1920 and 1930s, sharing in detail Ansel's Parmelian Prints (his first portfolio), his photo album of the Sierra Club's 1928 to the Canadian Rockies, and images from his time in New Mexico in the 1930s.
On the way the author goes in-depth describing Ansel's time in Yosemite as an employee of the Curry Company and how that experience—shooting advertising photographs—offered him tremendous opportunities to live in and photograph Yosemite until, as Ansel's confidence and fame as a photographer grew—and as the respect accorded his work by the company seemingly diminished—he cast off that relationship, rethinking his life.
This is not a book about the entirety of Ansel's life nor even the entirety of his early life. It is instead a book that gives you a tour of the major photographic projects of Ansel Adams and a great deal about their background, tracing his artistic development.
The book ends with a conclusion focusing on his national parks projects—many of his famous images appear here—and yes, the author retells the oft-told story of the making of Moonrise, Hernandez, but disposes of the story in one paragraph, offering not only a vintage Moonrise and a later Moonrise (to compare tonalities) but a straight proof print of Moonrise in recompense.
It's a good book and here at Amazon ridiculously inexpensive as I write this.
If you are interested in Ansel Adams as a photographer this is a book to get.
Top reviews from other countries
I was recommended to purchase this book and I'm glad I listened. There is so much about Ansel in here that I had been searching for on the internet with not much luck. The wealth of information provided by Rebecca is outstanding and a true insight into AA.
I'd highly recommend!