I think Mortensen vanished because publishers didn't want to be connected with him. There appears to be only one Mortensen book today, with a VERY DEMURE selection of his work.
If you know sites or books that are available today, share the info
It depends on which audience you are referring to. To the readers of Camera Craft magazine, Adams and his aesthetic was the victor.
I haven't seen any of his "pornography" (yes nudes, but no pornography) so I really can't comment on that aspect of his photography."IMO it's a little deceptive to refer to the "disparate views" of Adams and Mortensen without mentioning that Mortensen's fame had a lot to do with his outright and extreme, beautifully executed pornography. "
I haven't seen any of his "pornography" (yes nudes, but no pornography) so I really can't comment on that aspect of his photography.
What is your reaction when viewing a picture for the first time?
At my photo club they invited a speaker who was an expert in flower pictures. After watching 45 minutes of a hundred or so of his flowers as he explained how he captured the beauty of each, you wanted to throw up. Or kill the guy. I know he thought he was great and very important, but not that great or that important. After all, it was only photos. I think we all can get carried away with this stuff. I think three seconds is enough. Except for mine, of course.i don't look at something for 3 seconds ...
i have a background in art and architecture and art+architectural history
as well as the sciences so i look at something from a handful of perspectives
even if i don't like it i will still look at, maybe even more than if i like it .. like being a gut feeling ...
its all about what baggage you bring to the viewing. i'm not a big fan of brady's civil war dead
not because they are bad photographs, or he might have positioned them to "look better / more painterly"
but because it brings back memories of a day i looked at the images for hours for a class
and then a couple of hours later, for 3 hours i heard oral histories and personal accounts and photographs of a genocide ...
and then a few hours later for about 2 hours i looked at jeffrey silverthorne's series he took at morgues of people who had died of unknown causes ...
it was a bit overwhelming and still 30+ years later i don't really want to look at brady's work or much of anything that
is in your face with dead bodies ...
I'm surprised you put yourself through it. Don't they disclose the agenda before the meeting?At my photo club they invited a speaker who was an expert in flower pictures. After watching 45 minutes of a hundred or so of his flowers as he explained how he captured the beauty of each, you wanted to throw up. Or kill the guy. I know he thought he was great and very important, but not that great or that important. After all, it was only photos. I think we all can get carried away with this stuff. I think three seconds is enough. Except for mine, of course.
Yes, they did let us know he was going to do a presentation on how to do flower photography. But who figured he was going to torture us. They won't invite him again.I'm surprised you put yourself through it. Don't they disclose the agenda before the meeting?
I have the slideshow set at three seconds on my website. I'd hope you'd look at my prints for longer in person.I think three seconds is enough.
At my photo club they invited a speaker who was an expert in flower pictures. After watching 45 minutes of a hundred or so of his flowers as he explained how he captured the beauty of each, you wanted to throw up. Or kill the guy. I know he thought he was great and very important, but not that great or that important. After all, it was only photos. I think we all can get carried away with this stuff. I think three seconds is enough. Except for mine, of course.
Thanks. That was taken at the base of Yosemite Falls, just off the path. It rained most of the three days I was there. Technical details: Olympus OM1, 28-48mm f/4 lens. Ilford Delta 400 developed in DDX. Scanned with a Pacific Image Filmscan XE. Minor adjustments in LR. I have been doing more of my black and white work in digital lately. I have more control over the final image in LR despite 45 years in the darkroom.The one that stands out is the stream with the haze in the background 2017-007-15_72_720. Mysterious and great tones.
I have the slideshow set at three seconds on my website. I'd hope you'd look at my prints for longer in person.
Just click on the image to enter scroll view.I wish your website stopped changing when I want to take more than 3 seconds with one of your excellent images.
I think Mortensen vanished because publishers didn't want to be connected with him. There appears to be only one Mortensen book today, with a VERY DEMURE selection of his work.
If you know sites or books that are available today, share the info
If you have a chance to read Alinder's book on the f64 group, it is interesting to read how she presents how Mortensen out-wrote AA, and like I wrote above, won the battle.It depends on which audience you are referring to. To the readers of Camera Craft magazine, Adams and his aesthetic was the victor.
Amazon.com has a good used selection of his popular books, including a reprint of his 1956 last version of The Model, retitled How To Pose the Model. It's 100 pages skimpier than the original 1937 edition. This is still a useful book on posing nude and clad women (and an occasional male). I've never considered any of his photographs in several books to be pornographic. They are certainly more intimate than the nudes of Ruth Bernhard but less revealing than some of Weston's or Imogene Cunningham's.
I heard a story that she used to carry her cameras in a plastic bag! Her portrait of Beckett is one of my all time favourites.But you probably didn't read the Observer when she was working.
No point in more here. Porn means what we all think of as porn. Very active.
Amazon.com has a good used selection of his popular books, including a reprint of his 1956 last version of The Model, retitled How To Pose the Model. It's 100 pages skimpier than the original 1937 edition. This is still a useful book on posing nude and clad women (and an occasional male). I've never considered any of his photographs in several books to be pornographic. They are certainly more intimate than the nudes of Ruth Bernhard but less revealing than some of Weston's or Imogene Cunningham's.
I bought a photo book, Deep South by Sally Mann. I knew her work a little, mainly the shots of her family and I love reading about the South, especially the books of James Lee Burke. The large format camera seemed to give the results of a pinhole, blurred, messy, weird compositon. I put the book aside with a feeling I had wasted my money. A couple of months went by and the pictures stayed in my head so I went back to the book and this time I got the sense of it. I keep looking and each time I gain more. All the best, Charles. P.S. I am reading her autobiography, Hold Still. It is the best thing I have read in years and will compel me back to her photographs.
Are you supposed to like something because "everybody else likes it"? Or " critically acclaimed". Like To Kill a Mockingbird, is purportedly "acclaimed". Acclaimed by who? The answer is always the same crowd doing all the acclaiming. And always of the same underlying agenda. No. Not liking something is actually refreshing to heard being admitted. The Emperor is naked, and he look ridiculous. The acclaimers are all of the same aspiring elitist ilk, and many are militant lunatics. Truth is, if you don't like a picture, you don't like it. Nevermind the hoopla. You're fine.
Sally mann did a series where they actually store dead bodies outside to watch how they decompose...whoa!!!i don't look at something for 3 seconds ...
i have a background in art and architecture and art+architectural history
as well as the sciences so i look at something from a handful of perspectives
even if i don't like it i will still look at, maybe even more than if i like it .. like being a gut feeling ...
its all about what baggage you bring to the viewing. i'm not a big fan of brady's civil war dead
not because they are bad photographs, or he might have positioned them to "look better / more painterly"
but because it brings back memories of a day i looked at the images for hours for a class
and then a couple of hours later, for 3 hours i heard oral histories and personal accounts and photographs of a genocide ...
and then a few hours later for about 2 hours i looked at jeffrey silverthorne's series he took at morgues of people who had died of unknown causes ...
it was a bit overwhelming and still 30+ years later i don't really want to look at brady's work or much of anything that
is in your face with dead bodies ...
I was just going to ask for an example of a photography critic who was a militant lunatic. I've known of some that were opinionated, but militant lunatic not so much.can you please keep your political commentary to the soapbox? this thread has nothing to do with political conspiracies or left wing propaganda ..
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