Ansel Adams is America’s most revered photographer, an environmental hero, and a symbol of the American West. What William Henry Jackson was to Yellowstone, Adams was for Yosemite.
Adams owes a lot of his early success to the Sierra Club— his photographs and writing were first printed in the Sierra Club Bulletin in 1922, and his first one man exhibition was at the Sierra Club’s 
San Francisco headquarters in 1928. In turn, Adams did as much for the Sierra Club as it did for him. In the 1930s, Adams took a series of photographs to Congress to lobby for federal protection of Kings Canyon and the surrounding Sierra Nevada, the Sierra Club’s priority issue at the time. Adam’s advocacy work paid off in 1940, when Congress created Kings Canyon National Park.
In 1968 Adams was awarded the Conservation Service Award, the Department of the Interior’s highest civilian honor, “in recognition of your many years of distinguished work as a photographer, artist, interpreter and conservationist, a role in which your efforts have been of profound importance in the conservation of our great natural resources.” He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980, for “his efforts to preserve this country’s wild and scenic areas, both on film and on earth. Drawn to the beauty of nature’s monuments, he is regarded by environmentalists as a national institution.”
According to biographer William Turnage, the environmental issues of particular importance to Adams were Yosemite National Park, the national park system, and above all, the preservation of wilderness. His photographs became iconic of wild America, and he became an icon of the conservation movement.
Every year, the Sierra Club presents an Ansel Adams Award to a photographer who has used their talents to further a conservation cause. The Wilderness Society has it’s own Ansel Adams Award, which is presented to a current or former federal official who has been a fervent advocate of conservation.
William Henry Jackson is the grandfather of conservation photography. The man was certainly committed to his photography– during his surveying journeys of the American West, he needed a horse and pack mule to carry his 8×10-inch field camera, large glass photographic plates and a canvas-tent darkroom– well over 100 pounds of equipment.
first photographs of the Yellowstone region, while accompanying Ferdinand V. Hayden’s geological surveys to the area between 1871 and 1872. His photographs helped convince Congress to preserve the area in some way and led to the designation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, which laid the groundwork for protected areas around the world. In 1873, Jackson’s photos were also compiled into a portfolio by the Department of the Interior and presented to Congress to gain funds for future expeditions to the western United States.
Photojournalism for Change 