Banish your preconceived notions of Ansel Adams: the rugged and stoic nature-man. 

This dude was as hyperactive as they come (and prone to fits of hypochondria).

Adams was the only son of filthy stinking rich parents. He was from San Francisco and grew up just a stone’s throw away from Sartle’s headquarters. In his childhood, poor Ansel was a sickly little beast with no friends to speak of. Fortunately for the world of photography, Ansel’s friendlessness gave him ample time to explore the outdoors, which led him to develop an early respect for the natural world. Less so for natural disasters: three hours after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, an aftershock threw four-year-old Adams face-first into a garden wall and smashed his nose into its now signature crooked mess.

Little Ansel was kicked out of several private schools for his inattentiveness and general off-the-walls behavior, so his father decided to pull him out of school at the age of 12. Ansel cobbled together an acceptable education with the help of private tutors, his zany suffragette aunt, and his good old dad. He completed his formal education at the Mrs. Kate M. Wilkins Private School and later displayed his diploma on the wall of his guest bathroom. Tell us how you really feel about school, Ansel.

Ansel Adams’ foray into photography began at the age of 14, when his dad gave him a Kodak Brownie box camera on a family trip to Yosemite. From that first moment of revelation, Adams began an illustrious 60-year career as a photographer and wilderness preservationist. And despite his aversion to school, Adams later received an honorary Doctorate in the Arts from Harvard and from Yale. For the sake of a good story, I’m hoping he hung those right alongside his middle school diploma, above the toilet.