Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was born in San Fransisco, California in 1902.   Adams was an only child and his family lost a lot of money in the 1907 Bankers Panic, his father spent a lot of time trying to restore his families fortune and his mother spent time worrying about Ansel's father.   Adams had trouble in school and was diagnosed as hyperactive and dyslexic.   His father and aunt tutored him at home and his finished school up to eighth grade at Mrs. Kate M. Wilkins Private School.   Adams taught himself how to play the piano but later gave that up for photography.   he did, however use the skills he learned from piano to help with photography techniques.  
Adams first used a Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie camera that  he received from his parents.  Adams loved nature and became the “keeper” at LeConte Memorial Lodge in Yosemite.   that is where he met his wife Virginia Best, he married her in 1928 and they had two children.   the Sierra club played a valuable role in Adams success, his first photographs appeared in their bulletin in 1922.   He had his first one man exhibition at their headquarters in San Francisco.   Adams created  Monolith, the Face of Half Dome in 1927.   People compared his photography of the park to Homer's epic, Odysseus.  
Later adams did photograph for a wide rangeof clients.   Anyone from Kodak, IBM, and AT&T to Life, Fortune, and Arizona Highways magazines.   Adams started to write an autobiography but was unable to finish it when he died in 1984.   His autobiography was later finished by his editor, Mary Street Alinder.   This included almost 100,000 letters and notes he wrote during his life.   People have later written biography's on Adams, but no one has ever written a biography that covered his entire life.  

I chose his sand dune picture because the black and super light grey has an amazing contrast.   Your eyes are instantly drawn to the deep black on the left side of the screen then subconsciously move with the waves of the sand.   it gives it a very cool texture.   the grey on top sort of ads to the picture because it creates a great background.   It's such a soft color that it doesn't draw your attention away from the main focus of the picture.