Ansel Adams’ first ambition was to become a concert pianist, and many urged him not to give it up for photography. But he was also an ardent conservationist who fell in love with nature, particularly the Yosemite Sierra, and he ultimately became famous for his signature black-and-white Western landscapes, photographing at different times and seasons to show nature’s changing patterns. In fact, he won three Guggenheim grants to photograph national parks. A believer in “straight photography,” he founded the anti-pictorialist Group f/64 with
Edward Weston in 1932. Adams also developed the Zone System, an exposure technique for black-and-white photography that allows photographers to control the tonal range in a negative, giving them more control over finished photographs. While Adams is known for his landscapes, he also did commercial portraits and documentary work.
A leading fashion photographer,
Richard Avedon revamped the genre by capturing his models' personalities on film to create arresting, theatrical images. Discovered by
Alexey Brodovitch at
Harper's Bazaar when he was just 22, Avedon worked for the magazine for 20 years, while also contributing to
Life,
Look, and other publications. In 1965 he joined
Vogue, where he developed his signature style, shooting his subjects against a stark white backdrop. He produced several books, including
Observations (celebrity portraits and images of Italian street life, with an essay by Truman Capote) and
Nothing Personal (celebrity portraits and photographs of the mentally ill and prisoners). His work has been exhibited at the
Smithsonian Institution, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and the
Whitney Museum of American Art.After initially working for years as a documentary photographer for the New York Photo League,
Aaron Siskind eventually turned to abstract expressionism. A pioneer in photography education, he taught with
Harry Callahan in North Carolina, headed the photography department at the
Rhode Island School of Design and was a founding member of the
Society for Photographic Education (SPE). Today, the Aaron Siskind Foundation provides annual cash grants to photographic artists.
An influential American photographer known for his interpretive eye and superbly printed photographs,
Edward Weston's initial style was soft-focused and pictorialist. However, after joining the London Salon in 1917-and meeting
Alfred Stieglitz and
Paul Strand a few years later-he began shooting his subjects in sharp focus and emphasizing more abstract forms. After a stint in Mexico City, he moved to California and began the work for which he would become renowned-landscapes, nudes, and exquisite still lifes of objects such as shells and vegetables. (He eventually burned most of his early negatives, wanting to be remembered for his later work.) Along with
Ansel Adams, Weston helped form the famous
Group f/64 in 1932, and was the first photographer to receive a
Guggenheim Fellowship.
An American photographer who captured the zeitgeist of an era with his 1960s street photographs,
Garry Winogrand began his career working for Collier's, Sports Illustrated, and other magazines. But feeling hemmed in by his editors' directives-and inspired by Walker Evans' book American Photographs-Winogrand eventually began to take a more artistic approach to his work, developing a style often characterized by grainy textures, tilted frames, and complex interactions between the subjects in his photos. Winogrand's work earned legitimacy thanks to noted curator
John Szarkowski, who gave him exhibitions at
The Museum of Modern Art. Today, his work can be found in many notable collections. A prolific photographer, Winogrand left more than 2,500 rolls of undeveloped film at the time of his death.
Beginning his career as a fashion and portrait photographer, W. Eugene Smith eventually became a leading photojournalist, working for such publications as Life, Parade, and Flying. He was badly wounded while working as a war
photographer in Japan in 1945. Following an arduous recovery he rejoined Life, where he contributed several photo essays, including Country Doctor and A Man of Mercy (about Albert Schweitzer). At Life, he pushed for control of the magazine's photo essay format, knocking heads with fellow photographers and editors. In 1955, he joined Magnum and embarked on several notable projects, including Pittsburgh, for which he took thousands of photos throughout the city.
Smith's archive is held at the Center for Creative Photography
More about the Center for Creative Photography:
For years, Ansel Adams felt photography needed its own advocacy organization, and he dreamed of opening a photographic archive and research center. In 1975, that dream took shape when he founded the Center for Creative Photography on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson. The Center, under the direction of Doug Nickel, is committed to Adams' original vision: celebrating the art of photography, offering top-notch educational programs, and carefully preserving important works.
This world-renowned photography gallery, research center, and teaching institution - the only one of its kind - now holds the archives of more than 60 major 20th-century photographers, including Richard Avedon, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Edward Weston, Garry Winogrand, and (of course) Ansel Adams. In all, the Center houses approximately 80,000 exhibition prints by 2,000 photographers and 3.8 million negatives, contacts, work prints, paper documents, and archive objects, such as one of Ansel Adams' hats and W. Eugene Smith's chair.
