Photography is the art or process of producing images by the action of radiant energy and especially light on a sensitive surface as film or an optical sensor, (Webster). Over the years, photography has grown, and evolved, and impacted our lives more than ever. It can evoke emotions, and force us to act… by seeing photographs of war, or child labor the need to stop war and child labor is brought to life. It can be a matter of life or death; it can save our lives. Such as when you go to a doctor and they take a scan of your brain or body, and find cancer or a tumor you didn’t know you had but could affect your life. It can even change your life for the better… when you get an ultrasound and hear the heartbeat of your new baby for the first …show more content…
In the early part of the century, Edward Curtis, a great photographer and man, published a 20 volume set of photographs that captured the lives of Native Americans. To him, he thought Indians were people that would eventually disappear. But to him the photos had to be perfect, he would bring proper cloths, and pose photos, and make the Indian life seem very vacant almost. These photographs created people’s ideologies of what Indians looked like, even though most were kind of fake. Another photographer who looked to take pictures of Indians was Frank Matzura. But the difference between him and Curtis was that he liked to shoot Indians in their natural habitat. No staging of the photos, or giving them clothes to wear, but just the normal life of what an Indian lived …show more content…
He was a very patriotic man, and was the most American man. He devoted the majority of his life to save the wilderness of America. He helped change people’s views of their land and wilderness. “His whole life would be a journey, and an exploration; a search for meaning and order, for beauty and redemption; for contact with something larger and more lasting; for community, connection, and home,” (Ansel Adams). His legacy began when he experienced Yosemite Valley for the first time on June 1st 1916. This is where his father gave him a gift that would change his life forever… a Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie camera. This started him in a lifetime pursuit of photography. In 1923, on a late summer morning, Ansel would experience a defining moment in his life, a personal epiphany. He was hiking the long ridge of Mount Clark when he experienced a moment that seemed to stop time. The silver light of the sun made very blade of grass, every cloud in the sky shine, and it felt as if he was one with nature. This would ignite his career and life long search to capture the exquisiteness of the world. He defined his life in three words; Love, Friends, and Art. He really had a beautiful take on these three things and how they were all related. He thought of love as seeking a way of life that you cannot go through without someone by your side. He said it was the, “resonance of all spiritual and physical
Ansel Adams’ was an American photographer who strived to inform people about wilderness preservation throughout his photographs. Each of the artist’s prints, mostly consisting of black and white, showed how each captured moment was an experience into the wilderness and a moment that speaks out about the preservation of the last remaining wilderness landmarks. Throughout his career, Ansel used a variety of cameras including a Hasselblad, a Korona view, a Polaroid Land SX-70, Linhof, Leica, and a 35 mm Zeiss Contax. With his cameras in hand, Ansel set off on many journeys through the wilderness in order to make photographs filled with expression and truth.
Ansel Adams Ansel Adams was born in 1902 in San Francisco (Sierra Club). In 1906, Ansel was injured due to aftershock from the earthquake. He was homeschooled and “spent his childhood days playing in the sand dunes beyond the Golden Gates where he gained an appreciation for nature, which would become his primary source of photographic inspiration” (Sierra Club). Adams later began working at the Club’s LeConte Memorial Lodge. This resulted in him participating in the Club’s annual outing in 1927.
This is because photographers and writers make Indians resemble the Indian stereotype. A photographer in the 1900’s Edward Sheriff Curtis would take a box of paraphernalia to his photo shoots, like wigs, clothes, and backdrops in case he ran into an Indian who did not look the part Curtis would pay these Indians to change their hair or their outfit until they looked like an “Indian”(King, 34). I do not understand why Curtis would continue taking pictures of Indians in these stereotypical outfits, when he knew that they did not look that way; however Curtis was not the only one who created this stereotype. Karl May a writer, wrote a book on Indians, creating all these stereotypes, when in real life May had never even met an Indian. This seems strange that May would write a book validating this stereotype, when he himself had not even met an Indian in person. These stereotypes that were created by people like Curtis and May are unacceptable and as a student, I can help people understand the
King first writes about Edward Sheriff Curtis and his search for “the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the imaginative construct” (37). King then juxtaposes this with his own goals to photograph Native peoples from all different areas of the world. Curtis would change aspects how Natives were dressed, even going so far as to dress them in clothing from other tribes in order to photograph exactly what he wanted the Natives to be seen as. King then jumps to a story of how he first realized
Ansel Adams is a photographer who known best for his black and white landscape photos. Before beginning my photographer study of him, I had a limited amount of knowledge of his photography. Previously I had to write an essay for another class about a form of art. I chose photography and ,I more specifically, wrote about Ansel Adams. This essay was nothing too extensive, the only knowledge that I gained from it was that Adams took photographs mostly in black and white and that he was especially famous for his breathtaking landscape photos. When I set out to being this photographer study, I immediately knew that I wanted to continue learning about Ansel Adams and his type of photography. I think
Ansel Adam loved photographing and he was very fascinated about his art work. He is one of the greatest artists in American society and his painting world. I found him as a well build photographer in American society. He captures a picture of trees, waterfall and nature. He always tried to grab American culture
Although everyone should be involved in finding out more about this subject, historians and the ancestors of Indians who have been neglected have a tendency to be the more interested than others. Historians, like Edward Sherrif Curtis, the writer of "The North American Indian", are aroused by the mysterious past of the Indians. Their curiosity is what drives them to devote their entire lives to find out more about this historic past time. Curtis, for example, devoted more than thirty years of his life, following, living with, and taking more than forty thousand pictures of eighty different Indian tribes (Curtis, par.1). Another well-known seekers of Indian information are the Indians themselves. Their drive comes from keeping their heritage alive and giving justice to their ancestors who were mistreated by the senselessness of the white man. One of their goals is to share the wealth of information that has been passed down from their elders, to help us better understand their way of life.
In Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water, many people take pictures of the sacred Indian Sun Dance. This urge to take pictures proves that many whites view Indians as a source of entertainment or as a curiosity.
“Mass-culture images of American Indians are images created by white culture, for white culture (Meyer, Royer 62).”
Ansel Adams was a photographer who took pictures of landscapes in Western parts of America. Adams took incredible pictures of landscapes in black and white. Born on February 20, 1902, Adams gained interest in photography very early on in his life. Adams had interest in nature and was interested in piano. Adams loved national parks and enjoyed the outdoors greatly. Adams started taking pictures professionally in the 1920s, producing his first portfolio in 1927. His career started to take off in the 1930s when he started to experiment with different types of photography. From 1929 to 1942 he established himself, traveling and capturing images of landscapes in great focus
Sontag, Susan. "Essay | Photography Enhances Our Understanding of the World." BookRags. BookRags. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
He relates the story of Edward Sheriff Curtis, a photographer who went around the USA in 1900 taking pictures of various Native peoples (King, 2003, p.32). The problem with Curtis is that he was “looking for the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the imaginative construct”, so much so that he “took along boxes of 'Indian '” props to dress up people who did not fit that image (King, 2003, p.32). King compares this 'literary Indian ' to the “Indian of Fact”, which are the real Native Americans who do not fit into people 's expectations at all most of the time (King, 2003, p.32). The problem, then, is not who people are, but what others think they should be based on their own
“Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing, which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art. It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power” (Sontag 8). After reading this quote in my head multiple times, I started to realize that people use it for different purposes. When I took a photography class in college, it was under the category “art.” Which made me think of it as a form of art, when there are so many other ways to view photography. Sontag changed my opinion about photography after further interpreting her quote because to have a camera in our hand, being able to capture the world through our lens is to have a tool of
I believe that pictures are able to capture a single moment, highlighting the important meaning behind every action presented. According to Mitchell Stephens’ “By Means of the Visible: A Picture’s Worth,” images possess “great power - religious, tribal, romantic, pedagogic” (479). Similarly, in Kenneth Brower’s “Photography in the Age of Falsification,” a picture of earthrise is described as having “poetic power, evoking sentiment” (564). When looking at pictures, whether in my photo album or a Life magazine, I discover that emotions are stirred by those pictures that hold the greatest number of feelings, from anguish to happiness, thus making them the most memorable. Through my analysis of my most compelling photographs and the essays of Stephens and Brower, I have concluded that each picture evokes a feeling inside of me, whether it is a photograph of a kiss, a family in the mist of the Depression, or my grandfather.
Photography has captured all aspects of life. It has frozen beauty in time. It has snapped little memories that would have otherwise been forgotten. Numerous summer camping trips, children playing the freshly fallen snow, Dad raking up the leaves into five foot tall piles, and so on.