Ansel Adams PhotographyCreated for Scholastic Art Magazine

Why Black and White?Debbie Supplitt M.A.A.Ed./M.Ed.

Art Instructor

Ansel Adams was a photographer and environmentalist. He is best known for his black and white landscape

photography of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park.

1942

1979

At the Age of 21 Adams joined the Sierra Club to protect the wild. He enjoyed hiking in the

Yosemite Valley with the Sierra Club

• Here is a 5:45 Youtube video told by Michael Adams, Ansel’s son, discussing the visualization process that Ansel Adams would do in order to take a photograph.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxLCCZH6LOs

Ansel Adams Quote: “Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space. I know of no sculpture, painting or music that exceeds the compelling spiritual command of the soaring shape of granite cliff and dome, of patina of light on rock and forest, and of the thunder and whispering of the falling, flowing waters. At first the colossal aspect may dominate; then we perceive and respond to the delicate and persuasive complex of nature.”

Can you see and imagine the colors in this photograph?

“..the glittering greens, and golden wonders of stone…” What time of day is this?

Upper Yosemite Falls.What do you see? What do you hear?

Half Dome in WinterWhat do your feel? What do you hear?

Why shoot a photograph in Black and White?

• Color Distracts from your image and allows you to focus on your photos key elements of lighting, composition, elements that maybe in and out of the frame.

Color What does your eye

see first?

What does your eye see first?

You see light in different values… light, medium light, medium, medium dark and dark.

Black and White Values

Black and white helps emphasize the emotion captured in the picture allowing the viewer to connect to the

subject.

Black and white photography has a timeless quality to the image.

What year was this taken?Timeless….

Rose and Driftwood-1942

Black and white amplifies how the photographer uses the negative space.

Black and white highlights shape, form and the patterns of the image.

Black and White can create visual texture.What is this? How do you know?

Shape and Form

Squares rectangles, zig-zag patterns, what else?

What shapes do you see? Square, triangles, rectangles…What else?Do you see a foreground, middle ground and background? Do you see a heart in the negative space?

Black and white can highlight the tonal range between the deepest of blacks and brightness of

whites.

“Z” Pattern

Using black and white images helps the photographer focus on composition of the

photo.

“Black and white photography is truly quite a ‘departure from reality’ and the transition from

one aspect of visual magic to another …”-Ansel Adams

Question?

• Can Photography be considered FINE ART?

One definition of fine art is "a visual art considered to have been created primarily for aesthetic and intellectual purposes and judged for its beauty and meaningfulness, specifically, painting, sculpture, drawing, watercolor, graphics, and architecture."