A
Letter from Ansel Adams
Ansel
Adams responded to Rell
Francis, a
photo historian from Springville, Utah, on October 23, 1978 with
this:
“Thank
you very much indeed for your interesting letter of October 19th.
I knew Mr. Pillsbury very well indeed when he had his studio and
shop in Yosemite where he had developed his time-lapse photography of
flowers.
Mr.
Pillsbury was an extraordinary man and I think his contributions to
photography have been overlooked.”
Ansel
learned about wildflowers, and the need to preserve the natural world
first from the motion pictures shown on the porch of the Pillsbury
Studio. Help us ensure the films which moved Ansel Adams, produced by Arthur C. Pillsbury, survive.
Ansel
Adams in Yosemite
 |
| Ansel Adams, sitting, with family in Yosemite. |
Ansel
was fourteen, about to turn fifteen years old. Ansel's parents had
given him his first camera for their trip to Yosemite, a Kodak Box
Brownie.
While
taking his first roll of film Ansel fell off a rock and accidentally
snapped a photo. He took the roll of film to the Pillsbury Studio in
Old Village, to be developed. Ansel recounts the incident in his
book, Ansel
Adams, An Autobiography,
with
this explanation. “I
remember that it was Pillsbury himself, who presented me with my
developed film. He had not cut it apart, as he wanted to inquire how
this picture had come to be upside down in reference to the others on
the roll.”
Pillsbury
was then giving workshops in photography at the Pillsbury Studio. The area inside the Studio was limited and related
activities also took place outside, between the Studio and the
Yosemite Chapel, immediately adjacent. Ansel sat, fascinated, as he
listened to those lectures.
The
Pillsbury Studio was a Nature Center. Tourists were stirred and
inspired by Pillsbury's nature movies from the time he started
showing them in 1909. Pillsbury injected facts on the miracles of
nature while entertaining tourists and instilling in them a desire to
preserve these wonders. Photographs and film allowed Pillsbury to
take the wilderness to people, instead of people trekking into areas
which could be dangerous for them – and for nature.
Yosemite
Valley was the perfect meeting place for these two goals. It was
Pillsbury's work which inspired generations of film makers to do the
same.
1916
was the year Grandfather produced a film for David Curry, the founder
of Camp Curry. You can see part of the film, Seeing
Yosemite with David A. Curry, which
has been restored by the National Film Preservation Foundation. These
films are part of our history as a people who love nature.
The
same year, 1916, Pillsbury produced a movie titled, Legend
of the Lost Arrow,
featuring Don Tresidder as the Miwok hero. The film was made to
restore the dignity of Yosemite's native people and awareness of
their culture. Leroy Radonovich, for many years the photographer for
Yosemite, now retired, says finding, and preserving that film has
been a long time goal for many.
In
1917 Ansel returned to Yosemite with his family, again spending time
at the Pillsbury Studio. The next year, 1918, he returned alone,
photographing the wildflowers he had learned about at the Pillsbury
Studio. His own photographs that year were heavily weighed toward
flowers.
Pillsbury
brought awareness of the natural world to tourists in ways which
moved them. Free nature films and the flower identification cards
sold at the Studio were part of the campaign Pillsbury carried out.
No matter how tight the tourist's budget Pillsbury made sure there
were items they could afford to buy so they would remember their
connection to the natural world, and Yosemite.
Pillsbury
had built the first lapse-time camera in 1912 so people could see
with their own eyes the life struggles of the wildflowers, which had
been disappearing from the meadows of Yosemite.
When
Pillsbury had first bicycled into Yosemite Valley in 1895, still a student at
Stanford University, the meadows had stood waist-deep in species of
wildflowers. By 1912 the varieties still present were shrinking. The
U.S. Cavalry, which managed the Park, was mowing the meadows to
provide fodder for their horses.
Pillsbury
was determined to persuade those in authority to preserve what was
left. After a showing of one of his wildflower films at a National
Conference for Park Superintendents in October of 1912, the move
for preservation began.
These
were films Pillsbury also used later, when he lectured to people up
and down California and across the United States, Canada,
England, and the South Seas.
And
on March
15, 1926 Pillsbury
lectured at a dinner arranged by Secretary of the Interior, Dr.
Hubert A. Work in honor of President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge at the
Willard Hotel in Washington D. C.
The Washington Star wrote, “Nothing
has stood out more distinctly than the dinner given by Dr. Work a
week ago at the Willard. The guests numbered about 70, and the dinner
being followed by colored pictures showing the life of a flower from
its first seeding until it bloomed into full-grown beauty and then
dropped its petals.”
Grace Coolidge was quoted as saying, “she was profoundly impressed with the Pictures.”
Pillsbury
lectured to the National Geographic Society and at every major Town
Hall Forum. He spoke regularly on every major campus in the United States about the natural world. Pillsbury
was the first, others were lead by his example.
Ansel
Adams was touched, moved, changed, by the images of Arthur
C. Pillsbury, as his letter says. From 1923 on Ansel frequently
accompanied Pillsbury as an assistant while Grandfather photographed
the spring, summer, autumn and winter changes in Yosemite National Park.
In
1926 Pillsbury again used film to take the human eye into the living
world of the microscopic. Scientists and professors at the
University of California, Berkeley, were stunned to see his footage
of a cell dividing. These were images which changed our
understanding of processes which, until then, had been beyond human
vision.
Help us ensure these films survive. Please Donate now.
