Tonight at 8 p.m. on KUED/Ch. 7, the premiere of "Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film," written and directed by Ric Burns, will give viewers the opportunity to see for themselves why this visionary and opinionated photographer is considered an important 20th century American artist.
Part of the PBS "American Experience" series, this 90-minute documentary (co-produced by the Sierra Club and broadcast in honor of Earth Day) presents Adams' story through archival footage, photographic images, dramatic readings of the artist's own writings and interviews with leading photographers, historians, curators, naturalists and family friends.
Beginning with his birth in 1902, the film traces Adams' growth from an awkward, home-schooled boy with a precocious talent for music to the day he visited Yosemite with a Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie camera.
It also vividly depicts Adams' passion for exploring and photographing the Sierra Nevada, and how, in 1927, his life came to a dramatic turning point: With the last photographic plate of the day, Adams captured the image for "Monolith, the Face of Half Dome," his first famous photograph.
From the "Monolith" experience, the documentary continues by illustrating the years of productivity and growth, along with lessons learned from such great photographers as Paul Strand and Alfred Stieglitz, and the development of Adams' relentless dedication to image clarity and his perfectionist approach to printmaking, including the Zone process.
The film provides intimate glimpses into Adams' private life, especially his eight-year, on-again, off-again courtship of Virginia Best, the woman who would eventually become his wife and the mother of his two children. It also examines the defining emotional crisis of the artist's life — his relationship with his printing assistant, a young former model named Patsy English. While the relationship inspired some of his best work, it also led Adams to a nervous breakdown.
In his later years, the artist became one of the most recognized photographers in the world. Adams took advantage of his popularity by raising the public's awareness of the wilderness he so beautifully captured in black and white.
Over time, his life mission became the preservation of the great outdoors not only on film, but also in reality. His 1960 book "This is the American Earth," has been called "one of the most powerful statements the environmental movement has ever produced.
The documentary concludes by showing how, in 1984 — six months before his death — Adams was honored by the United States Congress when it set aside an immense tract of wild land southeast of Yosemite and named it "The Ansel Adams Wilderness."
"Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film" excels at telling viewers the artist's story, and showing how the precision and depth with which Adams captured nature's beauty excited people's imaginations and elicited the kind of popular response few other photographers have known.
For more information on "Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film" visit www.pbs.org/amex/ansel. The program will be broadcast on KBYU later this summer.
E-mail: gag@desnews.com