Ansel Adams was born on February 20, 1902 in San Francisco, California, and died on April 22, 1984. His education while growing up was poor. He was kicked out of many schools for bad behavior. So he got home schooled by family or tutors when he was 12. Since he lived in California, he was able to visit parks and go hiking a lot. He hiked throughout his entire life in Redwood National Park, Yosemite National Park, and many others. There, he discovered his love for nature.  That is why many of his pictures are of nature.He also found that pleasure with the Golden Gate Bridge. Before Adams became a photographer, he played the piano a lot. He taught himself when he was only twelve years old. Until 1920, that was his intended profession/occupation. Adams career and passion for photography was really started when he met fellow photographer Edward Weston. Together they founded F/64 in 1932. It was meant to spread straight photography and capture subjects as naturally as possible. Straight photography is capturing a scene or subject in sharp focus and detail. They picked the name F/64 because it was the smallest apeture size at the time. It gave the highest depth of field which allowed the most focus/detail on the scene/subject. However, before F/64, Adams worked for the Sierra club in 1919. That was also a starting point in his success. At the Sierra Club he met his soon to be wife, Virginia Best, and they had two kids. Adams's most famous work was part of his collection called, Yosemite and the High Sierra. In that collection he produced his most famous work, Monolith, Face of Half Dome (Seen Below). Throughout his life he was an enviormentalist and tried to conserve the environment by joining countless groups, but he most showcased the importance of nature by taking photos to display it's beauty.