Monolith: The Face of Half-Dome, Yosemite (work of art)
Artwork Info
Key Ideas
- Ansel Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist. He is best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West. He is also known for elevating landscape photography to fine art.
- Adams was hiking in Yosemite National Park when he created this photograph of the giant rock formation known as Half Dome.
- The dramatic tonal contrasts in this photograph were achieved by using a camera with a dark red filter.
Learn More
Ansel Adams first visited Yosemite National Park with his family when he was 14 years old. During that trip his father gave him a Kodak Brownie camera and he shot his first photographs. The next year he returned to Yosemite and photographed the scenery with better camera equipment and a tripod. In his teens Adams developed his early photographic work as a member of the Sierra Club. He was later hired by the United States Department of the Interior to make photographs of national parks. Throughout his life Adams worked as a landscape photographer and advocated for environmental conservation.
You don’t take a photograph, you make it.
Ansel Adams
In 1927 Adams’s first photographic portfolio, Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras, was published in book form. This publication launched his career as a professional photographer. Monolith: The Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California is one of the most recognized images Adams included in the Parmelian Prints portfolio. To create this photograph, Adams used a Korona View camera fitted with a dark red filter. In black-and-white photography, a dark red filter dramatically increases contrast. It turns blue skies almost black and makes white clouds pop. It creates an infrared-like effect, transforming a landscape by emphasizing shapes, textures, and light.
According to Adams, this photograph captures the feeling he had while gazing at Half Dome rather than how the scenery actually looked.
I have photographed Half Dome innumerable times, but it is never the same Half Dome, never the same light or the same mood . . . The many images I have made reflect my varied creative responses to this remarkable granite monolith.
Ansel Adams
tags: environment, nature, ecology, place, mountains, black and white, landscape, light
Additional Resources
Resources for Teachers
- Visit a website to read articles about the life and career of Ansel Adams.
- Explore an educator guide from the Portland Art Museum that includes Ansel Adams lesson plan ideas.
- Watch a documentary film about Adams.
Resources for Students
- Explore a virtual gallery of landscape photographs by Adams.
- Watch a short video of Adams describing his artistic process.
- View the images featured in Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras.
Images
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Monolith: The Face of Half-Dome, Yosemite