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Ansel Adams: An Autobiography | 
 enlarge | Authors: Ansel Adams, Mary Street Alinder
Publisher: Bulfinch
Category: Book
List Price: $16.99
Buy Used: $2.07
You Save: $14.92 (88%)
New (36) Used (55) from $2.07
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 278515
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 360
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0821222414
Dewey Decimal Number: 770.92
EAN: 9780821222416
ASIN: 0821222414
Publication Date: February 1, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This popularly priced edition of Adams' acclaimed 1985 autobiography preserves all the text but reproduces fewer photographs than the original. With characteristic warmth, vigor, and wit, America's most beloved photographer-environmentalist recalls his extraordinary six-decade career. "A warm, discursive, and salty document."--The New Yorker. of photos.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Very Interesting Reading...! December 8, 2007
I have learned so much from this book about Ansel as well as many other notable photographers as well.
Very well written - easy to read - hard to put away...
A superb chronicle of a truly artistic life October 1, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is one of the only books I have ever read where I limited myself to three pages of text a night; it was so good, I wanted to savor it as long as possible.
The photos speak for themselves; far beyond what words can express, some of these images capture the deepest truths about the American landscape.
Ansel is a good writer and a great thinker. His love for nature and music is profound, and reading of his many successful battles for the preservation of some of the world's finest places makes you just love the guy.
Whatever personal details may be missing are more than compensated for by the endless beauty within these pages. I would read three pages and then spend half an hour just falling into two or three photos. Adams' eye for light and composition and meaning is incomparable. These photos are sensual delights, with deep love attached.
Ansel also inspired me to spend serious time in Big Sur and Yosemite; for that I will always love him, and especially for his tireless work in protecting both of these most amazing of places.
What a special man.
If you can, get the first edition hardcover, it's well worth the extra bucks. The prints are as good as any fine art book you've ever seen. Later editions and the paperback are excellent, but are a step down from the first edition. You'll revisit this book many times and want to pass it on to your kids; get the best version you can.
 Lots of Insight - What about his family? April 9, 2007
As an aspiring photography this is a great read. I was unaware of all of the environmental works Adams performed and the struggles he endured to make photography a recognized art form. I found that the last page of most chapters provided some of the most insight from Adams, and perhaps the editor formed the back that way. Hearing his philosophies on life and the various people he admired and appreciated (Albert Bender) was enjoyable to read. What seemed to be a glaring omission, or maybe not, was discussion about his family. There is almost no mention of his children and I think no mention of his feelings for them or his wife. Maybe the intent of the book was to focus on photography.
Great bio, but one thing people should know. January 10, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Ansel Adams work is a treasure. I am a descendent of the original Indians of Yosemite and there is a problem. The defintion "Some of them are killers" for Yosemite was fabricated in 1978 and is not the original meaning of Yosemite. The real meaning was "The Killers" or "The Grizzlies" because the Miwoks were afraid of the Ahwahnees. It was Chief Bautista and Russio, who were helping the Mariposa Battalion, who coined that term "Yosemite" for the Indians in Yosemite Valley which they were afraid to enter. It is because the Miwoks were once enemies of Chief Tenaya and the Ahwahnees. 30 years Yosemite National Park Service hired a person named Craig Bates who was married to a Miwok woman and had a 1/2 Miwok son who created that new defintion. So it is increble that ONE person changed the meaning and defintion of one of the most important and well known parks in the whold world...and no one noticed.
Both enlightening and inspiring November 28, 2005
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
While this book is about Ansel Adams, it is also about the struggle to make photography a recognized form of art. If you have any interest at all about the non-technical history of photography, I would highly recommend this book.
There is much more here than just the thoughts and ideas of one man. Each of the people that influenced Adams are described in detail, and in doing so, Adams provides a much needed background for the modern history of photography. Adams was fortunate enough to be able to work with a diverse and creative group of people at a time when the art world was expanding into new mediums. He worked with many now-famous photographers, painters, philanthropists, and institutions, and his experiences with them give the reader a very strong base from which to asses these very important ideas and movements. In reading this book, I was able to greatly improve the depth of my understanding of photography as art, as well as improve my understanding of the contributions of a number of other photographers. I was both inspired and encouraged by reading how much hard work and unending effort these photographers went through to ensure that photography would be recognized as an art form.
Another poster questioned whether Adams worked with the content of this book to cast himself in the best light. While this is quite possible, what is included does no so much focus on Ansel Adams the man as it does on his main goal in life, making photography a recognized art form. Everyone has personal issues to some degree, and I am sure that Ansel, being human, was no exception. But those problems are just that, personal, and would be tangental to what Ansel saw as the focus of his life. Everyone has faults so there is really no reason to enumerate them in print unless you are attempting to make yourself feel better by highlighting the faults of others.
I would strongly recommend this book for anyone who appreciates photography, history, and the arts, as well as those that would like to gain a better understanding of a very creative photographer. Of all the books about, or by, Ansel Adams that I have read, this is the one book that I would put at the top of the required reading list. It is also one of the best books about the modern history of photography I have read to date. I really cannot recommend it strongly enough.
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