Making a Photographer: The Early Work of Ansel Adams

by Rebecca A. Senf (Author), Anne Breckenridge Barrett (Foreword) Exhibit Catalogue for Discovering Ansel Adams (June 7, 2025-September 28, 2025) An unprecedented and eye-opening examination of the early career of one of America’s most celebrated photographersOne of the most influential photographers of his generation, Ansel Adams (1902–1984) is famous for his dramatic photographs of the American West. Although many of Adams’s images are now iconic, his early work has remained largely unknown. In this first monograph dedicated to the beginnings of Adams’s career, Rebecca A. Senf argues that these early photographs are crucial to understanding Adams’s artistic development and offer new insights into many aspects of the artist’s mature oeuvre. Drawing on copious archival research, Senf traces the first three decades of Adams’s photographic practice—beginning with an amateur album made during his childhood and culminating with his Guggenheim-supported National Parks photography of the 194