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With an oeuvre that’s both innovative and enduring, the US photographer Ansel Adams is almost universally regarded as a master of his craft and a pioneer in photographic art. Because his black-and-white landscapes have become so ubiquitous – commonly found on postcards, computer backgrounds and doctor’s office walls – it’s easy to take the beauty of his images for granted. But as Evan Puschak (also known as The Nerdwriter) shows in this video essay, there’s perhaps never been a better time to re-examine the careful, deliberate approach Adams took to his work.
Video by The Nerdwriter
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Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
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Film and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes
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Bioethics
What a 1970 experiment reveals about the possibility and perils of ‘head transplants’
6 minutes
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History of technology
Replicating Shakespearean-era printing brings its own dramas and comedy
19 minutes
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Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
Can you see music in this painting? How synaesthesia fuelled Kandinsky’s art
10 minutes
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Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
11 minutes
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War and peace
‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary
12 minutes
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Art
Why Diego Velázquez needed a lifetime to paint his enigmatic masterpiece
31 minutes