preview

Analysis Of Ansel Adams ' A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Better Essays

A picture is worth a thousand words. This phrase has almost become cliched but it is a powerful statement that applies perfectly in photography. When good photographers observe a powerful scene that moves them, they will use their talents, skills, and techniques to translate that power in their photography. They can effectively allow their audience to feel the same power they did during their first observation. In turn, this communication of power often returns power to the original scene. This is true in photography that conveys everything from human rights violations to family history to nature. One photographer that took this journey with his art was Ansel Adams. At a very young age he felt a spiritual connection and inspiration with Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada country. He honed his talent and technique as a photographer to capture that power and inspiration so that it radiated from his final prints. As people observed his prints, they were moved and in turn provided power to protect the majesty of the wilderness that Ansel so loved. Adams was an only child to his parents and his father “molded into his son a direct expression of Emersonian ideals, raised above all to adore nature, the straightest path to the eternal.” He struggled to fit in at school as he “was an odd, hyperactive child” who “grew emotionally unstable and cried easily.” and was eventually homeschooled. The nature loving boy was 14 years old when his family first visited the Yosemite valley

Get Access