Ansel Adams - Merced River, Cliffs, Autumn

[DREW WILEY]

Yeah, that would be a good estimate. The dolomite comes from across Owens Lake at the foot of the White Mtns, named for the bands of dolomite which often resemble year-round snow. As far as the composition goes, note how the dark middle hills replicate certain undulations of the higher peaks beyond. He knew the exact position he needed and set up the shot well in advance atop his station wagon roof platform. In Examples he claimed it took him four sheets to get the horse right. Even fast films of that era were slow by our standards, and darn grainy too. I once briefly stayed in that little town of Dolomite scrambling ridges and collecting reef fossils for my Invertebrate Paleontology term paper. The family (the LP principal of that time) once had a flash flood come out of the adjacent canyon, depositing their mobile home eight miles away out on Owens Lake bed! Remarkably, it didn't roll and they weren't hurt.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Any pre-press tech of the era would have known how to eliminate the lettering without needing to either abrade the original neg or do print spotting. AA worked with a relatively small toolbox. But his sense of position and timing with the composition was spot on. Further up the road, his famous Manzanar and Mt Williamson image, the one with the thumbprint on the neg, also contains some subterfuge, but with the title itself. The prominent peak in the background is just a point on a ridge of an unnamed minor peak fully 2000 ft lower than the real Williamson, which is indeed obvious from that spot, but 7 miles further north and a LOT bigger. I've infuriated a number of his worshippers by pointing that out. But it's too obvious for AA himself to have missed.

 

[eddie]

Eddie - After the original Seagull G Bromide, the next generation of it had similar image tone but was comparatively anemic in terms of punch. The redux Grade 4 was worthless.

I just checked. What I have on the shelf is a 50 sheet 16x20VC box of glossy, and 2 50 sheets VC of 11x14. They're the newer white box. I loved the old blue box paper. I did my ZS college class/tests on it, way back when.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

The man's work never ceases captivating me. I know that some consider his work "dated" now; I'm not in that club. I'll sing his praises till the end...

Dale

I agree but this particular image was also done by John Sexton; and he did it better IMHO.

 

[Vaughn]

...Of course there's also the big problem of Adams and the 'untouched by humans' landscape idea, which often seems to propagate in seemingly 'wild' places a few decades after the people who scraped a living on that land were conveniently removed from it...

I think the former point has been given far more weight than it contains, while agreeing with the latter. For many landscape photographers working with the light, man-made objects in the image attracts the viewer's attention immediately, nulifying a lot of what we are trying to do within the image with light and form. We are social creatures....put people in the photograph and the image works differently...stories are created.

 

[Lachlan Young]

I think the former point has been given far more weight than it contains, while agreeing with the latter. For many landscape photographers working with the light, man-made objects in the image attracts the viewer's attention immediately, nulifying a lot of what we are trying to do within the image with light and form. We are social creatures....put people in the photograph and the image works differently...stories are created.

I think the problem tends to lie in the rather false idea of imposing a specific idea of 'wilderness' on what are, in the main, landscapes much more strongly influenced by human activity than people were/ are aware. It's also a discussion that an awful lot of photographers (outside of the various academic sects - and there they tend to get rather stuck in the boggy lands of poorly translated dead French theorists) tend to want to shy away from because it touches uncomfortably deeply on the 'why' of their image making. I think it also troubles the 'technician'/ engineer mentalité in a particular way too - because there aren't necessarily absolute right/ wrong answers that can be computed/ coded.

 

[images39]

I share Adams' disdain for the practice of humans placing large white letters on mountain faces, as with the "LP" in Winter Sunrise. Where I live, we're surrounded by beauty; mountains, lakes, forests, desert. But around my town, people have taken to installing these hideous letters on various mountain faces surrounding Reno. In all cases, they are associated with the University or with high schools. There's a massive "N" (for University of Nevada), a "G", an "S" and a "D," all for high schools. It grates on me! Why? This defacing is utterly foolish and needless.

Adams said it best in Examples: "The enterprising youth of Lone Pine High School had climbed the rocky slopes of the Alabama Hills and whitewashed a huge white L P for the world to see. It is a hideous and insulting scar on one of the great vistas of our land, and shows in every photograph made of the area."

He was dead on. I couldn't say it any better.

Dale

 

[images39]

In the urban environment, it’s tagging/graffiti that pisses me off no end. It takes one night after anything is built for those idiots to write their idiot names on it.

+1. We now have university professors proclaiming the value of graffiti "art," even teaching courses on it. I've never bought into that. If it's art, why doesn't anyone pay for it? Why isn't it in museums? Why does it have to deface public and private property every time?

Dale

 

[Sirius Glass]

In the urban environment, it’s tagging/graffiti that pisses me off no end. It takes one night after anything is built for those idiots to write their idiot names on it.

+1

 

[Deleted member 88956]

There are some gifted graffiteers and discounting their place in arts is plain wrong. Some cultures have dedicated walls and buildings for their use too and I wish this approach gained more support. I don't like seeing them all over, but they are as skillful as any artists. And I like snapping photos of them. If I showed you a wide view, you would be pissed.

This one from the great State of Maine. And not from the skilled, but I still liked it.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

I have no problem with it in dedicated spaces, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about plain vandalism. There’s no message, it isn’t rebellion, it isn’t disenfranchised expression. It’s just spoiled little high school punks destroying other peoples’ stuff for pleasure.

I agree on that, they mostly pick worst places to show it. BTW one I showed is not in public view as it is an underpass, in the woods, and one needed effort to find it.

 

[eddie]

+1. We now have university professors proclaiming the value of graffiti "art," even teaching courses on it. I've never bought into that. If it's art, why doesn't anyone pay for it? Why isn't it in museums? Why does it have to deface public and private property every time?

Dale

It is in galleries and museums. There's even a graffiti museum in Miami. People are paying for Banksy, Fairey, and Haring, to name a few.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

Well, paying for any art is no indication of its quality. And to me it proves hardly anything, but graffiti is unquestionably part of the art world and a stand alone at that.

 

[Anon Ymous]

In the urban environment, it’s tagging/graffiti that pisses me off no end. It takes one night after anything is built for those idiots to write their idiot names on it.

Graffiti, when done where its not inappropriate can sometimes be beautiful. Tagging on the other hand is just plain ugly, no matter what.

 

[images39]

There are some gifted graffiteers and discounting their place in arts is plain wrong.

Actually, inflicting one's "art," unsolicited, on public or private property is plain wrong. Public and private structures, railcars and locomotives, etc. all fall prey to this. Do they ever first ask if they can deface someone's property? Of course not, that would take ethics...

Dale

 

[images39]

It is in galleries and museums. There's even a graffiti museum in Miami. People are paying for Banksy, Fairey, and Haring, to name a few.

If people want to pay for it, that's fine, it's a free world (mostly). If they want to see it in museums, that's fine too (I'll pass, but that's personal taste). But you didn't address the last part of my question; 99% of the time it's done via vandalism, not museum or gallery exhibits.

Dale

 

[Deleted member 88956]

Actually, inflicting one's "art," unsolicited, on public or private property is plain wrong. Public and private structures, railcars and locomotives, etc. all fall prey to this. Do they ever first ask if they can deface someone's property? Of course not, that would take ethics...

Dale

I never disagreed with that, but you are not arguing my point at all.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

If people want to pay for it, that's fine, it's a free world (mostly). If they want to see it in museums, that's fine too (I'll pass, but that's personal taste). But you didn't address the last part of my question; 99% of the time it's done via vandalism, not museum or gallery exhibits.

Dale

Actually the point was being made questioning visual validity of graffiti, aside from where it is mostly presented. So as an art form it has now an unquestionable place. Vandalism is just the unfortunate part of it and clearly still seen as main argument against it.

 

[images39]

I never disagreed with that, but you are not arguing my point at all.

To your point that graffiti is part of the art world: I consider it more part of the vandalism world, but that's okay, we can agree to disagree.

Dale

 

[Deleted member 88956]

To your point that graffiti is part of the art world: I consider it more part of the vandalism world, but that's okay, we can agree to disagree.

Dale

If we can agree that we are arguing over two separate, parallel and non-converging points - then yes.

 

[eddie]

If people want to pay for it, that's fine, it's a free world (mostly). If they want to see it in museums, that's fine too (I'll pass, but that's personal taste). But you didn't address the last part of my question; 99% of the time it's done via vandalism, not museum or gallery exhibits.Dale

Of course, I'm against vandalism. You did ask why it isn't in museums, and why no one pays for it, which were both incorrect. We should bear in mind there was a time the same questions were asked about photography.

 

[DREW WILEY]

VC is completely different than Seagull G graded. Again, they decently matched the image color characteristics; but I personally found all their VC products disappointing by comparison.
The first VC product on the market I was really happy with was Forte Polygrade V. But it had its own personality and image color.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Graffiti is vandalism plain and simple. If one wants to express their feelings with cans of spray paint then get the owner's permission or find a sponsor. If one is desperate for a canvas just turn the nozzle around and spray the paint on ones own corneas.

 

[DREW WILEY]

This would be a good opportunity to subsidize the ailing airline industry and ship all those solvent-inebriated brain-dead spray paint types to Singapore for a caning, one-way ticket of course. Now even meadow catwalks and scenic barns out at Pt Reyes are getting sprayed, since less Park staff are around. Why the health dept even allows "street art" to be done in indoor spaces defies all common sense. It's just like sniffing glue, and should be outlawed for that reason alone. Even if Jean Michel Basquiat did them, if it was without express permission, they should be sandblasted off the building, and the expenses extracted from his estate. Around here, they're mainly associated with violent territorial gang activity anyway. Glamorizing either that aspect of it, or some alleged artistic value, just encourages more. How would you like it all over your house, or your place of business? Would it be "art" then?

 

[Arthurwg]

I would have changed the lens or driven further down the road too.

Living about 40 miles north of Hernandez I managed to visit the location earlier this year. I think I found the exact spot where the picture was made, and it's fair to say that one could not drive further or closer to the church. These days, however, the scene is somewhat obscured.