Ansel Adams vs: Mehmet Ozgur

I just was going through the portfolios on my Lenswork Extended #78. I came upon one with outstanding landscapes. It is called Visionscapes. Brooks Jensen makes the comment that Ansel Adams work is much like his work in that he has gone to Yosemite and seen the Landscapes that AA has take and the manipulation done in the darkroom is nothing like the real thing. Mr Ozgur's work is taking parts of landscapes that he has photographed and made landscapes that are no where to be found on this earth. Mr. Ozgur when confronted with this statement, just indicated no comment. I have nothing against MR. Ozgurs work it is some of the best manipulation of landscape I have ever seen. And this is what he likes to do, similar to a painter that makes up a landscape just to make a gorgeous landscape. But I find comparing dodging and burning in the darkroom the same as making up a landscape from bits and pieces. If AA was alive to hear this he would slap Brooks for that. There is nothing even close between the two other than rocks in the photographs.
I have listened to Brooks over the years and agreed with some things and didn't agree with others. I have learn a great bit from him too. But this comment has me going over the edge. Desecrating AA's work with this type of digi comments is totally out of line.
Sorry i just had to get this off my chest.

Michael Andersen

The point of Brook Jensen's remark is to question the validity of the indexical nature of the photograph and in essence what part(s) - if any - of the landscape photograph is "real." Even these natural wonders themselves cease to be unmanipulated by cultural (and man-made) intervention. The grand canyon is constantly held in a state of "preservation" where naturally occurring flooding is kept down in order to allow as many people to see it as possible AS THEY EXPECT TO SEE IT / the water flow over niagara falls is kept to about ten percent its normal flow in order to keep it where it is to allow as many people to see it as possible AS THEY EXPECT TO SEE IT / yosemite damn well makes sure that those now famous vistas are able to be seen by as many people... you get the point... "landscape" and/or/as "nature" as it is sentimentally seen and thought of is a fiction.

There is also the philosophical question of wether or not or how much "reality" exists in the photograph. After all, it (the subject) IS seen through a lens and determined by a combination of film, chemistry, paper, presentation, context, etc.... After all, a large part of the beginnings of photography was about the photograph's ability to capture what wasn't seen --- for example, muybridge's animal locomotion to victorian memento mori portraiture.

I think giving this, it's not a stretch to say that what adams was doing is not a whole lot different than what ozgur is doing - hell, adams hardly shot a negative at all the last thirty years of his career choosing to manipulate the negatives already shot in the darkroom. In a weird double-negative sort of way, I could even see the argument that what ozgur is doing is more true to the contemporary "landscape" than what adams did -

does a fiction of a fiction make something real?... or if the thing photographed is already a fiction, does the photograph itself retain any sincerity or truth to its indexical reading?...

Jensen touches upon interesting questions that are played out a lot in contemporary art today - and much more interestingly and complex than either one of these photographers though who seem to both be lost in a sentimental landscape of their own.

michael9793 said:

Mr Ozgur's work is taking parts of landscapes that he has photographed and made landscapes that are no where to be found on this earth.

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AA's point of view about reality in his work is, in his own words:

"The illusion of "reality" in a photograph relates primarily to the optical image; the actual values are usually far from reality."

Of coarse, the word "values" refers to the tonal relationships occuring in the picture, which is the beauty of black and white photography because departures from reality can be quite drastic without affecting true essence of the thing, IMO.

"Optical image" I take to mean that all the elements within the photograph are true as witnessed by the lens and transferred to the film in a singular moment of exposure.

Brooks' photo digital art manipulations may look nice, but I have no interest in it nor respect for it. But that's just me.

matthewbetcher said:

I think giving this, it's not a stretch to say that what adams was doing is not a whole lot different than what ozgur is doing - hell, adams hardly shot a negative at all the last thirty years of his career choosing to manipulate the negatives already shot in the darkroom.

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This is remarkable. How so, by placing a different emphasis on the interpretation of a negative (Mt. McKinley and Wonder Lake comes to mind)? This is the same as what Ozgur is doing? Nonsense, IMO. AA's interpretation of a negative at one time in his life versus at another time in his life is a reflection of his own changing perspective with time and age. Not saying that what Ozgur is doing is necessarily wrong, but how it is a comparison to what Adams did escapes me.

To me, you're associating the manipulation of simple tonal relationships within the confines of a single negative with someone's merging of multiple exposures in a piecework of digital mastery and saying that it is the same as simple contrast control measures in a traditional darkroom. Both are art, but there is no comparison, IMO.

CPorter said:

This is remarkable. How so, by placing a different emphasis on the interpretation of a negative (Mt. McKinley and Wonder Lake comes to mind)? This is the same as what Ozgur is doing? Nonsense, IMO. AA's interpretation of a negative at one time in his life versus at another time in his life is a reflection of his own changing perspective with time and age. Not saying that what Ozgur is doing is necessarily wrong, but how it is a comparison to what Adams did escapes me.

To me, you're associating the manipulation of simple tonal relationships within the confines of a single negative with someone's merging of multiple exposures in a piecework of digital mastery and saying that it is the same as simple contrast control measures in a traditional darkroom. Both are art, but there is no comparison, IMO.

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So AA not shooting the last 30 years only gives him 40 years of photographing. He taught most of those years along with helping to preserve our national parks.
Next where AA took one negative to make several interpretations in different prints, not like Ozgur who would go out and take as many as 10,000 shots and go back and match up different landscapes to come up with a fairytale landscape. Nothing in common.
All your thoughts on man made structures to save the landscapes so people can go see it forever is a little bizarre. I'm sure flood control and preservation of water for California has nothing to do with what your talking about. Or does it have anything to do with the final outcome of the two photographers work.
Oh by the way Ullsmans work is not reality but actual print manipulation without photoshop (now he is using it). I don't think his work and AA's work could be compared as similar manipulation.

my reaction to ozgur's fantastical landscapes in lenswork 78 was a kind of photographic deja vu ..... it reminds me how photographers at the turn of the 20th century worked so hard to create idyllic, romantic style images so their work could be 'elevated' to the status of painting in the art world, but their tools were limited to soft focus lenses and gum ..... straight shooters eventually pushed pictorialists aside with the argument that the true art of photography lie in the lens' ability to render exquisite detail and to create art from the world we actually live in ..... now, a century later, photoshop provides pictorialists with the ultimate new tool to create the idyllic landscape, and ozgur's invented landscapes (and his own words) plainly demonstrate that photography is now truly on the same plane as painting (plein-air painting, anyway).... but whether that's an elevation or a diminution of photography is up to the beholder -- personally, i think it's fine for what it is, tho i fear that as this kind of work multiplies, the less photography will be appreciated for the one thing it can do that painting cannot -- create art directly from a moment in time ..... as for the comparison of tonal manipulations ala adams with alterations of content ala ozgur and others, i agree with the sentiment that they are apples and potatoes -- clearly burning in a sky is not in the same league as adding a snow-capped peak and a new river valley

So AA not shooting the last 30 years only gives him 40 years of photographing.

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Not true. Where ever did you get this idea? He died in '84 and photographed through the 60's, not a lot of his best stuff for sure but he was photographing. Teaching and writing a lot through the 70's up to his death.

All your thoughts on man made structures to save the landscapes so people can go see it forever is a little bizarre. I'm sure flood control and preservation of water for California has nothing to do with what your talking about. Or does it have anything to do with the final outcome of the two photographers work.

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"All my thoughts on man made structures......" I never made any comments on manmade structures and saving landscapes or whatever else it is that your talking about here.

Chuck,
I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about Betcher and his comments. And you are right he did photography but not to the extreme he did early in his life. he felt later in his life that he couldn't visualize like he could early on. But I think it is like a lot of photographers they hit that 30 year mark of photographing and begin to feel they just can't see what they want to see. I don't believe in that since I'm 56 and did stop photographing after about 25 years and took a 12 year break before getting back into it. But I do see how they would think. i see some of the work on APUG and I think to myself why i couldn't see that or why don't I get as excited sometimes as I use to. This may have been what AA was thinking that he didn't get as excited about photographing as he did early on. His daughter even said that he still had a eye till his death but he just didn't feel he did. As we all get older Our thought processes change. And As I even sit here writing I'm wonder if shooting in 120 vs 8x20 is making any difference to me anymore.
Do I sell all my equipment and just have one camera. do I do roll or sheet. Who really cares. We do and how much really depends on the individual person. I threw out this thread to see what kind of thoughts would be expressed. But to my surprise only a few wanted to get involved. Chuck I agree with you 100% and Rich I think said it better than i did. So thank you for your comments on a very volatile subject.
mike andersen

My point, and I'm sure Jensen's, is about the artifice of the photograph (as well as the subject matter)... and adams quote above (and the fact that he spent more time in the darkroom later in his career than shooting) is nothing more than witness to the fact that he thought of it that way as well. In this respects, there is a similarity between the works.

Is that similarity small? yes! Does it make Ozgur's work "similar" to adam's work? hell, no! In the end, the two photographers have a much different intent for the reading of their work - they are worlds apart, though they have one small idea that is at the root of their respective methodologies.

Hell, I don't even think it's worth comparing the two as i really don't think Ozgur's work is all that interesting... and I am one of the few on this forum i think who think that Adams, while a brilliantly genius technician (that i happen to admire and respect as such), produced work that in the end is not really that interesting. However, when you start to see adam's prints side by side printed in different years, things start to happen...

And as for man's manipulation of the landscape... yes it is bizarre - and very foulcauldian. But the fact remains that those spaces that we want to see as "naturally preserved" are anything but and have a history of construction, capitalism, and marketing (from tourism to industry).

I've not seen LensWork #78, but it sounds as though Ozgur's work is similar to Bruce Barnbaum's in the sense of "unreal" landscapes that BB makes entirely in the darkroom. Unlike Uelsman, BB's stuff is plausible...just not actual.

Ansel did what he did, and Ozgur does his thing. They are not certainly not equivalent, not homogenous, and share very little in common. A comparison only serves an agenda. Ozgur or Adams work should stand or fall on it's own, for exactly what it is.

michael9793 said:

Chuck,
I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about Betcher and his comments.

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My bad, sorry for misreading your post.

i never can understand how someone suggesting
how mr adams might be compared to another photographer
who instead of doing crazy darkroom and in camera manipulations
did composite manipulations to create a final image
would cause such a problem.
they both do something similar but different ..
each makes a fantasy ..
some like their dreamscapes
while i find them interesting, i don't find either of them to
be the be all and end all of photography ...
and i wouldn't go out of my way to seek out
either of their tripod holes, i enjoy finding my own ..

JBrunner said:

Ansel did what he did, and Ozgur does his thing. They are not certainly not equivalent, not homogenous, and share very little in common. A comparison only serves an agenda. Ozgur or Adams work should stand or fall on it's own, for exactly what it is.

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Pretty well said----each are so different, IMO that they can't be compared in a meaningful discussion. Landscape alone is not enough to tie these two together in a debate over style, technique, or whatever other criteria can be brought into it.

I'm late to the game here, but to each their own. We all see the world differently. I'm nobody compared to the aforementioned artists, but my own approach is to describe what I see and feel when I'm out there with my camera, and what I see, smell, feel, and hear is suspect to be different from all other people in the world. Personal interpretation of subject matter reflects everything that has happened to you in your life up until the moment you take your prints out of the washer.

How can one even begin to compare the output of two different people and their artistic expression, when I think they're expressing their unique view as well? And more so, each of us making the comparison are going to have a different interpretation of the artist's work.