Why Does Ansel Adams Bring Attention To The Teton Mountains

How does Ansel Adams bring attention to the Teton Mountains and how does it help develop the theme of environmentalism in his works?

Ansel Adams is a famous American photographer known for his incredible black-and-white landscape photographs. Ansel Adams started his photography career around the early 1920s. He heavily advocated for environmental conservation and was even contracted with the United States Department of the Interior to photograph U.S. national parks. His photos serve as documentation of our natural world. I have chosen five of Ansel Adams's works that all capture the Grand Teton Mountain range. In this essay, I will assess how Ansel Adams's attention-grabbing photographs of the Teton Mountains convey his advocacy for protecting

This photo is taken from across the river valley and we can see that there is a winding river splitting through the woods of the Grand Teton National Park. This light reflecting off the river catches my attention because it starts in the bottom right corner and leads my eyes in a zig-zag motion toward the base of the mountains. But, along the way, you can’t help but notice the texture of the foliage in the bottom left corner, which contrasts with the smooth water of the river. Since Ansel Adams's photographs are in black and white, it allows the viewer to see a strong contrast between the dark trees in the bottom half of the photo to the bright white snow-capped mountaintops. I believe this particular photo presents an idea of a surprise because the smooth peaceful river leads to such a daunting mountain. As I previously stated, Ansel Adams was contracted to photograph the U.S. National Parks and this image helps bring awareness to the natural beauty of the Snake River and Teton Mountains and to the conservation of such an aesthetically pleasing location in Wyoming. When people can recognize the natural beauty of our national parks, more likely they are to care for the conservation of these

In this picture, we see the Teton Mountains covered in snow with a few clouds hovering over them with a shallow horizon line. I think Ansel Adams sets a low horizon line because there is not much to look at above the horizon line other than grey wispy clouds. This empty space leaves our eyes to mainly focus on the Teton Mountains. Once again the black and white color scale helps the snow stand out and highlight the rocky mountains. Since Ansel Adams took this photo from a high vantage point at the top of Signal Mountain it makes the tall trees in the foreground look more flat and tiny compared to the massive mountains. I think this photo is also very balanced visually. The horizon line is nearly symmetrical, the foreground is mostly flat so there is nothing that really catches the eye. The left and right sides have about the same amount of mountain detail to look at. Through our different progressions, we find ourselves examining and observing various elements of our natural ecosystem and I find it interesting that a simple picture of some mountains can mean so much in terms of documenting the U.S. landscape and