Equipped with a simple Kodak Brownie camera his parents gave him in 1916, the young Yosemite visitor tramped through the park's mountains, snapping the first images of what would become a lifetime of incredible artistic productivity. By this time, he already had developed a love of nature, walking amid sand dunes outside his home near the picturesque Golden Gate. James Mason Hutchings' 496-page In the Heart of the Sierras caught Adams' imagination, and he soon managed to convince his parents to vacation in Yosemite National Park. While sick in bed with a cold one day at age 14, Ansel read a book that would eventually change his life. He initiated a classical education plan for Ansel that included piano lessons and studying Greek. Whatever the cause, the elder Adams determined that it would be more productive if his socially awkward son was tutored at home. A shy introvert with big ears and a deformed nose, young Ansel may have also suffered from a hyperactive disorder or dyslexia. He lived a fairly normal childhood until the eighth grade when his father recognized that Ansel was having difficulty fitting in at school. An only child, Adams was raised by his older parents and live-in aunt. Unforuntately, most of the family fortune was lost in the 1906 earthquake and the national banking panic the following year. And for most of his life, Yosemite National Park was Adams' chief source of inspiration.īorn in San Francisco in 1902, Adams was the grandson of a wealthy timber baron. Hues of wildness surfaced in this great American photographer's stunning black-and-white prints. When photographer Ansel Adams looked through his camera lens, he saw more than Yosemite's rocks, trees, and rivers.

Ansel Adams shown as pictured in the 1950 Yosemite Field School yearbook and in “Yosemite Nature Notes” in January 1952.

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