Polaroid Corporation records, series IV: Photographs and correspondence of Polaroid consultant photographer Ansel Adams

Renowned landscape photographer Ansel Easton Adams was born in San Francisco, California, in 1902. During the course of the 1930s and 1940s, Adams produced some of his best-known works such as "The Golden Gate Before the Bridge" (1932) and "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico" (1941), developed close relationships with prominent figures in photography circles such as Edward Weston, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, and Charles Sheeler, and became a respected advocate for environmental conservation as well as photography. Though his work was recognized and exhibited in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, he continued to accept commercial assignments to supplement his income. In 1948 Adams met Polaroid founder Edwin H. Land. Intrigued by Polaroid's instant film, Adams was engaged as a freelance consultant to Polaroid in 1949, and retained this position until his death in 1984. During his tenure with Polaroid, he was involved in many exhibition, writing and teaching projects, which he often sought to incorporate into his Polaroid consultant work.

Adams tested nearly every product Polaroid made during the span of his consultancy. He regularly sent detailed memoranda, typically accompanied by test photographs, to Polaroid, describing his experiences and opinions. Because he lived in California his entire life, most of his test photographs and correspondence were taken and written there. He also traveled to the Southwest and the East Coast of the United States, and would take test photographs and write during his travels. In addition to providing feedback on specific products, Adams commented on Polaroid marketing and advertising, and explained to the company how Polaroid products were perceived by the public and his photographer colleagues. He introduced many of his friends to Polaroid materials, helping them overcome their initial creative skepticism, and is credited with the idea of developing Polaroid's 4x5 film that was targeted towards a professional photographer audience. He introduced Polaroid products into his Yosemite teaching workshops, and wrote the instructional Polaroid Land Photography Manual as part of his Basic Photo Series, which was published in 1963. In the early 1960s, when Adams decided that Polaroid's products rivaled the quality of traditional film, he began using them for serious creative work, and included Polaroid photographs in exhibitions of his work. He advised Polaroid on photographs to acquire for their fine arts photography collections, and sold some of his own fine arts photographs to the company, many of which were displayed in Polaroid offices. He encouraged Polaroid employees to develop their understanding of creative photography through training and workshops he gave in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as in Yosemite National Park. Adams often sent Polaroid a year-end review letter, summarizing his current projects and ideas for Polaroid.

Many of the test photographs Adams took were associated with a particular letter or memorandum in which he often recorded exposure details about the test photographs and a description of their subject matter along with additional commentary. He frequently took a sequence of test photographs of the same subject or view with slight variations, such as in the aperture setting, developing time or use of a filter, recording all of these details on the test photograph as well as in the letters. The test photographs are sometimes numbered, and sometimes several are affixed or mounted together on one sheet, with Adams' commentary written around them. Some of these are also mounted in small Polaroid spiral-bound albums. The subjects of the test photographs often reflect themes with which he is most commonly associated, such as landscapes, close-ups of the natural world, and Yosemite, but also include numerous other subjects such as rural and urban architecture, gravestones, abstractions, still lifes, his home and family, and most notably, portraits of artist friends. Within his test photographs are also numerous photographs of other photographs, paintings, and sculptural objects, as he sought to test the materials' ability to reproduce other works of art. Adams also worked on several photographic reproduction projects for Polaroid such as the India Project, and some of the resulting materials are found in this collection.