A photographer who doesn't know who Ansel Adams is... still.

[RobC]

Although I like AA's work, I believe he deserves his status for writing "The well-tempered photography," and describing the science underneath the process, more than for his images. Liking his work is a matter of taste.

I agree, Adams for me is about his writings which gave me understanding of exposure and contrast control. I like some of his images but in general I don't find them inspirational. I've always found Moonrise over Hernandez to be a rather dull image but I've never seen a real print of it.

I'm a big fan of Michael Kennas' work especially his Japanese images, some of it less so.

 

[Jim Jones]

I was thinking along that line, my list included Diane Arbus and Sally Mann... and I know where I can find a Ruth Bernard book by Jim Alinder

Better yet, a Ruth Bernhard book by Ruth Bernhard (or at least, in collaboration with Margaretta Mitchell). Perhaps you can even find an original edition of The Eternal Body.

 

[MattKing]

Adams is also important for the influence his photographs had amongst the efforts of the Sierra Club and the others instrumental in the early environmental movement.

If you don't have a sense of that, I think you are missing something important about the role of photography in society.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Adams is also important for the influence his photographs had amongst the efforts of the Sierra Club and the others instrumental in the early environmental movement.

If you don't have a sense of that, I think you are missing something important about the role of photography in society.

Although not instrumental on the environmental movement, you can get that same sense of the impact of photography on social change going back to Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange and the other FSA photographers, and Jacob Riis before them. You could in theory draw a somewhat bent and dotted line between them and Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan in their documentary work on the Civil War. So I don't see Ansel Adams as being crucial to understanding the role of photography in society - his work for the Sierra Club was just another example in a very long line of socially conscious photographers that continues to this day. Yes he was of major importance to the environmental movement, and he deserves significant credit for that work - in fact, he's gotten it in the form of a large chunk of national forest outside Yosemite being designated the "Ansel Adams Wilderness Area".

 

[pdeeh]

Perhaps it would be good for Bill's son to be aware that photography does not begin and end with American photographers in the 20th century ...

 

[cliveh]

A student once mentioned to me that he had started playing the guitar and had formed a band. When I asked him how it was going, he said “Clive, have you ever heard of The Beatles.”

 

[pdeeh]

And had you?

 

[DannL.]

And then there was that french duo Nicéphore Niépce & Louis Daguerre . . . .

 

[Sirius Glass]

Henry Fox Talbot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fox_Talbot

 

[Dali]

Sal Santamaura, frank and I were discussing "how" my son, who is taking a photography course, does not know who Ansel Adams is.

I know little of what my father does, so it makes sense. We live our lives together but I haven't been focusing too much on "teaching" my children to take over the family business.

I often cringe to find Ansel Adams is the first photographer that comes to "most" people's minds.

Now that he's taking a class, I'm actually excited by the prospect of introducing him to photographers who I consider important.

So that maybe the first person he will think of is someone else.

Who should it be?

There is no universal answer and name dropping does not help.

Depending on your experience and what you are interested in, the anwser might vary. If you were asking the same question to people in the street, it would be much more reveiling the perception of photography among the public and those photographers whose fame went beyong the photo microcosm.

 

[RobC]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Eadweard Muybridge. An Englishman who went to North America to show them what photography was all about and was instrumental in the development of the moviing image. A.K.A the movies. Hollywood may not have existed without Eadweard Muybridge

http://www.eadweardmuybridge.co.uk/muybridge_image_and_context/introducing_muybridge/

I detect a certain amount of bias on show here

p.s. He beat Adams to Yosemite by a long way.

http://www.eadweardmuybridge.co.uk/muybridge_image_and_context/california_landscape/

 

[cliveh]

I.m surprised no onehas mentioned Eadweard Muybridge. An Englishman who went to North America to show them what photography was all about and was instrumental in the development of the movies

I detect a certain amount of bias on show here

I agree, as Muybridge was a complete showman and very into his own self promotion.

 

[MattKing]

I don't think there is any question that there are many photographers who should be well known.

One of the things that sets Adams apart is that he was well known for a long period of time, and his work remains available.

So not knowing about Adams probably indicates more disconnect from the history of photography than not knowing about someone like Muybridge.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Sal Santamaura, frank and I were discussing "how" my son, who is taking a photography course, does not know who Ansel Adams is.

I know little of what my father does, so it makes sense. We live our lives together but I haven't been focusing too much on "teaching" my children to take over the family business.

I often cringe to find Ansel Adams is the first photographer that comes to "most" people's minds.

Now that he's taking a class, I'm actually excited by the prospect of introducing him to photographers who I consider important.

So that maybe the first person he will think of is someone else.

Who should it be?

Niepce,Steichen,Helmut Newton and HCB of course.

 

[Wayne]

Who should it be?

Depends on how you want to distort his first perceptions and what risks you are willing to take in doing so. You want to capture his interest, and risk him not giving a damn if you try to impress Joe Blow on him just because you think he's more important than Ansel Adams.
I would target someone who will appeal to his natural tendencies, not avoid people like AA who might appeal to him just because you think he isn't that important. AA has wide appeal in America for good reason, he was influential among his photographer peers, students, environmentalists. People, the average person, can often relate to his work. That's why his name is the one people know above all others.

You could choose to tell him about Niepce or Talbot or HCB, and maybe one of them will float his boat and maybe they will sink it. Might be smartest to introduce several important names at once including Adams rather than try to force the issue with one name that you think should rise above all others.

 

[RobC]

I wonder if everyone would find it far more difficult to recommened current practicing and upcoming photographers to look at rather than all the usual historic suspects. I certainly would. I was looking at so many different photographers work online a few years ago that i reached load limit and stopped with the intention of following my own nose instead of someone elses.

 

[MattKing]

I wonder if everyone would find it far more difficult to recommened current practicing and upcoming photographers to look at rather than all the usual historic suspects.

Even better, recommend a pair of photographers - someone recognized as having historic significance, along with someone working now who might have been influenced by the earlier photographer.

 

[removed account4]

I often cringe to find Ansel Adams is the first photographer that comes to "most" people's minds.

me too, there is a whole world of people with cameras out there who have made a huge impact,
maybe they didn't write books, or become synonymous with the words "landscape photography" or "zone system"
( because their catalog was never mass marketed into 10$ posters &c ) but just the same
there have been oodles of people who used cameras whose POV, style, darkroom work and other "stuff"
is commonplace today, because they laid the foundation that a lot of people build on
but still their names are more obscure and out of the main stream.

similar to film making and georges méliès. techniques he invented are still used today but no one
except a few knew who he was until recently ( and the movie hugo brought him + his work to light )

 

[Wayne]

me too, there is a whole world of people with cameras out there who have made a huge impact,
maybe they didn't write books, or become synonymous with the words "landscape photography" or "zone system"
( because their catalog was never mass marketed into 10$ posters &c ) but just the same
there have been oodles of people who used cameras whose POV, style, darkroom work and other "stuff"
is commonplace today, because they laid the foundation that a lot of people build on
but still their names are more obscure and out of the main stream.

similar to film making and georges méliès. techniques he invented are still used today but no one
except a few knew who he was until recently ( and the movie hugo brought him + his work to light )

Melies is fascinating, but do you really think an introductory photography student is going to be interested in him or people like him? I think he's more of an advanced student topic, or someone who might interest that one really weird intelligent artsy kid in the class. Or you, or me. But not of general interest to beginners.

That's just my take; I'm not a teacher and I'm not a father.

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

buy him movies , classical music, experimental music and painting catalogs , orson welles , tarkovsky , eisenstein

 

[removed account4]

Melies is fascinating, but do you really think an introductory photography student is going to be interested in him or people like him? I think he's more of an advanced student topic, or someone who might interest that one really weird intelligent artsy kid in the class. Or you, or me. But not of general interest to beginners.

That's just my take; I'm not a teacher and I'm not a father.

hey wayne

not necessarily "interested" in him
but i think it is important for any student.beginner &c
to know there is more to film making than michael moore and robert gardener
just as there is more to photography than aa, hcb, siskind or weegee.
that is why i suggested early in the thread someone from the 20s/30s like
man ray, who pushed photography beyond what people thought was possible.
too many people, old, young, students, professionals / whatever forget
the world exists beyond the blinders they put on themselves
( or someone else/their peers, online friends, work, limited experience/knowledge has them wear ).

but that's my take and i'm often wrong

john

 

[markbarendt]

Karsh.

 

[cliveh]

Surely the Beethoven of photography is Eugene Atget?

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

If you want lists of names for people to look at who are established but not ossified, two very different photographers to look at would be John Dugdale and Joel-Peter Witkin. Sally Mann and Connie Imboden would be two others I'd point young photographers to. After seeing the documentary about him, I get more of what his work is about and I think he'd be good to study: Gregory Crewdson (still doesn't mean I like his work - I just appreciate it better).

 

[ambaker]

I am by no means an accomplished photographer. I am guilty of liking Adams work.

That being said. I would recommend looking at the work of as many different photographers as possible; in order to learn what is possible.

Then decide what speaks to him, and what he would like to say with his work.

I enjoy the light and texture of Adam's images. I have no urge to repeat them. One, it's unlikely I could do it as well. Two, it's been done and not what I want to say.


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