Ansel Adams is credited by many as the grandfather, and indeed the inventor, of landscape photography.

He is famous for his mainly black and white studies of the American West, and particularly Yosemite National Park ( www.nps.gov/yose ).

He developed a number of techniques which developed the art (pardon the pun) including the zone system to determine proper exposure and to adjust contrast whilst printing.

You can read more about his life and work in this article on Wikipedia.

He used his art and his skill to raise the profile and support many environmental and humanist causes, including a study of the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. But he also contributed greatly to the American war effort by undertaking numerous assignments for the American military, including capturing details of Japanese installations in the Aleutians.

The photograph of the Tetons and the Snake River shown on this page is one of the 115 images of the Earth included in the Voyager Golden Record, so it can be said that his work is accessible at selected locations outside the solar system, a claim that cannot be made by many photographers.

He also has a mountain named after him. Mount Ansel Adams is an 11.760 feet high mountain in the Sierra Nevada on the border between Yosemite National Park and the Ansel Adams Wilderness. So I guess he has a wilderness named after him as well.

You can discover more of his life and work at the following sites :

• www.anseladams.com - Official webite of Ansel Adams
• www.anseladams.org - Official family owned Ansel Adams website
• memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams - Ansel's study of the Japanese-American internment at Manzamar during WWII
• www.archives.gov/exhibits/picturing_the_century/portfolios/port_adams.html - National Archive photos by Ansel
• www.archives.gov/research/ansel-adams - Highlights of Ansel's work for the National Park Service