Ansel Adams Calendar Giveaway!
I'm winding down the year with a boatload of Ansel Adams recommendations and another photography giveaway. Who wants it?
“A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed, and is, thereby, a true manifestation of what one feels about life in its entirety.” — Ansel Adams
I’m teaming up with The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust to give away ten Ansel Adams 2024 calendars. Read more below about how to participate.
It’s hard to think of a photographer more influential than Ansel Adams. I remember the first time I saw an Ansel Adams photograph: framed poster prints on the walls of a local Hardees in the small Wisconsin farm town where I grew up. I was only a kid, but I remember loving those pictures even back then. I didn’t know what I was looking at exactly. Still, I knew Ansel Adams was the photographer because his name was printed in big block letters beneath the images. I imagine that many of you have similar memories. Ansel Adams is probably the most famous photographer ever to live, and his pictures have moved millions of people.
This summer, I was in San Francisco on a work trip. I managed to steal away early on a Friday afternoon to see the “Ansel Adams In Our Time” exhibition at the de Young Museum. I’d seen Ansel’s prints before, but never a presentation this expansive. The show blew me away, and it was a truly remarkable experience to witness so many of his prints in person. You don’t get that opportunity every day. I returned from that trip wanting to do something about Adams in the newsletter.
Not long after, I caught up with Claudia Rice, the managing trustee of The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. Claudia runs the popular Instagram and Threads feeds featuring Adams’ work (do yourself a favor and follow her). She’s a delightful person with a ton of knowledge about Adams and his photography. We caught up on a Zoom call a few months ago and started brainstorming ways to collaborate.
I’ve been an Adams fan since childhood and have several of his books. Who doesn’t? When Claudia told me about the Trust’s annual tradition of producing Ansel Adams photography calendars, I was instantly jealous — How cool would it be to immerse yourself in Adams’ vast photography archive to make something beautiful (and useful) year after year? I asked if we could share some of these gifts with you, dear readers, and she graciously agreed!
I'm a perpetual student, so I asked Claudia if she'd be open to working with me to co-create a newsletter post about Ansel in the spirit of the previous mixes I've curated about William Klein, Saul Leiter, and Larry Fink. If you liked those, you'll love today's post: It's loaded with goodies about Ansel and his photography. Claudia knows his work far better than I do, and she unearthed some real gems and generously wrote some blurbs to contextualize her recommendations.
There is a lot to look at here, and you may not get through it in one sitting. That's fine — you can always come back and re-read this post. I hope you find something you like. We would love more photography folks to see these links and hear about the giveaway. Please share it with your friends and photo colleagues.
Okay, I’ll let Claudia take it from here. Enjoy!
As its name implies, The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust is somewhat an extension of Ansel's lifelong interest in publishing (I’ll sheepishly confess that I’ve been in a darkroom only once in my life!), so I’d love to start by touching on the topic of Ansel’s bookmaking, before providing some links to existing videos and articles about him.
Ansel’s virtuoso darkroom technique is the stuff of legend, even though relatively few admirers of his photography have had opportunities to view his chemical prints in person. In the pre-digital era, at least, most of his vast audience came to know and love his images through photomechanical translations onto the printed page in ink. Ansel’s career as a master darkroom printer was paralleled by a lifelong quest to maximize the potential of printing press technology to create the finest possible reproductions for his many books and — towards the end of his life — on posters and in annual calendars. Yet, his accomplishments in this parallel discipline don’t receive a whole lot of attention.
Ansel’s exquisite sensitivity to tonal relationships was the same whether in the darkroom or on press. We’re talking about two dramatically different means of producing images, but Ansel achieved similar levels of control over them. Beginning in the early 1930s, he doggedly and tirelessly pushed the envelope in terms of what was possible with the technology of the moment. In time, advances in printing technology made it possible to improve upon the expressive qualities of ink on paper relative to chemical prints until; eventually, Ansel could think of specific ink interpretations of his photographs as new, enhanced expressions, as opposed to mere reproductions.
Ansel established this Trust in the 1970s to provide posthumous oversight of any outstanding publishing projects and to uphold his standards in the future. Today, producing Ansel’s annual calendars involves the same core team of talented photomechanical printing professionals that John Szarkowski assembled to create the catalog and ancillary publications for Ansel's centennial exhibition (circa 2002). I’m unaware of another fine art publishing program characterized by the kind of dedication, continuity, and longevity that Ansel continues to inspire in “his” team almost 40 years after his passing.
The Trust’s calendar program began under Ansel’s auspices, but the inaugural 1984 calendar was, I think, the only one produced entirely with his input and approval because he passed away in April of that year. He initially embraced the format as both a medium for creative expression and a channel for mass communication. The 1984 and 1985 wall calendars featured original editorials Ansel wrote on the state of the environment. Presumably, had he lived longer, this would have become an annual tradition. To commemorate the calendar program's 40th anniversary, we've reproduced the entirety of his 1984 statement on the back of the 2024 wall calendar. Sadly, it reads as though it could have been written yesterday! We’ve paired it with a photograph of the (unnamed, at that time) Sierra peak that was, after his death, officially named “Mount Ansel Adams.”
We have some book fans here, so you'll appreciate this hour-long presentation, "Designing a Book with Ansel Adams," by renowned graphic artist and educator Lance Hidy, organized for the Society of Printers. It’s a fascinating behind-the-scenes account of his experience as principal designer of Ansel’s 1979 book, Yosemite and the Range of Light — which set a new publishing standard and generated enough buzz to land Ansel on the cover of TIME. Lance has remained an essential member of the AA Team over the years. I had an especially fun and memorable learning experience working alongside Lance on the Trust's most recent book, published in 2019 (Ansel Adams’ Yosemite: The Special Edition Prints).
I find this short interview with the late printer David Gardner, one of Ansel’s last collaborators, particularly insightful. What’s especially interesting here is how Gardner testifies that the pressmen of the time were sometimes getting better detail in their printed proofs compared to the chemical photographs Ansel supplied for reference. This could have potentially been viewed as an undesired departure from the original expression, but Ansel was stoked to have this newfound capability.
Fundamentally, Ansel saw himself as a creative artist; above all else, he wanted to be recognized as such. In the 21st century, it’s impossible for most of us to appreciate what a lofty goal this was because it’s hard for us to imagine how scorned photography was when Ansel started out. That said, he was also a consummate commercial photographer. While the line may have blurred at times, maintaining a separation between his creative output (which he termed "assignments from within") and his commercial output ("assignments from without") was of high importance to him. Today, many photographers are interested in learning more about the commercial side of Ansel's career—not only his technical prowess but also how he diversified his income streams and marketed himself. The New York Times ran a good piece about this in LENS in 2013.
The mini-doc that the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco made this year with Richard Misrach for “Ansel Adams in Our Time” is very well done — short and sweet! Misrach lovingly communicates the idea that challenging and affirming an established artist’s legacy can be two sides of the same coin.
The BBC aired a television series, "Master Photographers," in 1983 before Ansel passed away. He talks about some central tenets of his philosophy of photography, like the concept of "visualization” and his favorite musical analogy, "The negative is the score — the print is the performance.”
That this home movie even exists is such a remarkable happenstance! It was filmed by Ansel’s wife Virginia during a hike with friends to the spot in Yosemite known as “the Diving Board,” where on that very day, he made his breakthrough photograph Monolith, The Face of Half Dome, 1927. Lane Collection Curator Karen Haas incorporated the footage into the gallery presentation of the MFA Boston’s traveling exhibition "Ansel Adams In Our Time," which recently concluded in San Francisco.
Finally, I've always enjoyed this 1958 documentary narrated by Beaumont Newhall. I especially enjoy seeing Ansel at the piano and love that it is soundtracked by an actual recording of him playing. It also features music by fellow musician-photographer Don Worth.
Thanks, Claudia! Now, without further adieu, what you’ve all been waiting for…
Win an Ansel Adams desk or wall calendar calendar!
I want to get to hear from you, dear readers. Submission is FREE and easy.
Has Ansel Adams influenced how you feel about photography? Tell me where you live and share your experience in the comments for a chance to win. Be creative and have fun with this. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
I'll draw three random winners from the comments on December 27, 2023.
Postage costs are limited, so this giveaway is only open to U.S. residents. I’ll announce our winners in the New Year. Good luck!
One more thing…
I'll leave you with my favorite Ansel Adams video by Alan Ross. It's such a great picture and a charming backstory. Thanks, Alan!
I hope you enjoyed this post. We'd love more people to hear about the giveaway and the newsletter. Please share it with your photo friends. Happy holidays!
My photography professor in college interned for Ansel Adams and had some wonderful stories about learning from him in the field, including one where accidentally flipped the lights on in the print lab. I also love the behind-the-scenes story of how Moonrise was made, it's inspired me to bring life into my photos both in-camera and in post. Loved this newsletter, thanks for doing this giveaway. –Alex from Manhattan Beach, CA
I was adopted at one month old. Recently, through DNA, I found out that my Cousin is Hans Halberstadt and his Father, my Uncle, was Hal Halberstadt, who was a Photographer and colleague of Ansel Adams. I was scheduled to meet Ansel and take one of his workshops when he passed. Had it happened, I'm sure Hal would have said I look like his Cousin, Steven, my Biological Father. He was a Photographer and an Artist. His Father, my Grandfather, was Ernest Halberstadt, a Photographer and Artist, who worked with Diego Rivera and Frido Kahlo.