formal vocabulary by altering the very photo-
graphic chemical process.
ANNEBARTHELEMYSeealso:Bragaglia, Antonin; Bruguie`re, Francis;
Chargesheimer; Dada; Funke, Jaromir; Modernism;
Moholy-Nagy, La ́szlo ́; Photogram; Siskind, Aaron;
Stieglitz, Alfred; Strand, Paul; Zwart, Piet
Further Reading
Barrow, T. Hagen, C. Neusu ̈ss, F.M.Experimental Vision.
The Evolution of the Photogram Since 1919. Denver:
Denver Art Museum, 1994.
De Sana, J. (dir.)Abstraction in Contemporary Photogra-
phy. Clinton, NY: Emerson Gallery and Richmond, VA:
Anderson Gallery, 1989.
Grundberg, Andy.Photography and Art Interaction Since
1945. New York: Abbeville Press, Los Angeles County
Museum, 1987.
Lyons, Nathan, ed.Photographers on Photography: A Crit-
ical Anthology. Rochester, NY: 1966.
Phillips, C., ed.Photography In the Modern Era: European
Documents And Critical Writings. 1913–1940. New
York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Aperture,
1989.
Szarkowski, John,Photography Until Now. New York:
Museum of Modern Art, 1989.
Tucker, J.S.Light Abstraction. St Louis: University of Mis-
souri, 1980.
Yates, S., dir.Proto Modern Photography. Rochester, New
York: George Eastman House, 5 December 1992–7 Feb-
ruary, 1993.ANSEL ADAMS
American
Throughout his life, Ansel Adams made monumen-
tal contributions as a photographer, teacher, lectur-
er, conservationist, and writer. He is best known as
an undisputed master of straight natural landscape
photography. His photographic studies of the
American western landscape have gained extra-
ordinary prestige and popularity, partly because
he achieved an unsurpassed technical perfection
by approaching the medium in a scientifically pre-
cise way and insisting on absolute control of the
photographic process. According to Adams, an
initial and most important constituent of this pro-
cess is the photographer’s visualization of the final
product, which involves an intuitive search for
meaning, shape, form, texture, and the projection
of the image-format on the subject. The image
forms in the photographer’s mind before the shutter
opens. Put in Adams’s own words:
The camera makes an image-record of the object before
it. It records the subject in terms of the optical properties
of the lens, and the chemical and physical properties of
the negative and print. The control of that record lies in
the selection by the photographer and in his understand-
ing of the photographic process at his command. The
photographer visualizes his conception of the subject as
presented in the final print. He achieves the expressionof his visualization through his technique—aesthetic,
intellectual, and mechanical.
(Adams 1985, 78)
Born in San Francisco in 1902, Adams was inter-
ested at an early age in music and was trained
to become a concert pianist. At the age of 14,
on a family vacation in the Yosemite Valley, he
took his first photographs—an experience that
would inspire him for the rest of his life. Back in
San Francisco, parallel to his education in music,
Adams studied photography with a photofinisher.
He returned to Yosemite regularly to dedicate him-
self to photography, exploration, and climbing. In
1920, he formed an association with the Sierra
Club (a conservation organization), and in 1928,
the year he married Virginia Best, began to work
there as an official photographer. His first photo-
graphs were strongly influenced by the prevalent
pictorialist style, visible in his 1921 Lodgepole
Pines, a characteristic soft-focus, romantic image.
This style would turn quickly into a more ‘‘honest’’
representation of nature. In 1927, Adams’s first
portfolio was published,Parmelian Prints of the
High Sierras. After meeting Paul Strand in 1930
and being deeply influenced by his straight
approach to the subject, Adams took the decision
to devote his life to photography. By working as aADAMS, ANSEL