Didn't Ansel Adams called it the "Fuzzy wuzzies"?

LAG · Sep 25, 2016

jnanian said:
hey LAG

what do you mean, you kind of lost me ...

sorry for my confusion !

john

I meant that this type you're not interested in:

jnanian said:
personally i have no real interest in f64 type ...

The terms refers to a "feature" that the group could not entirely leave to the print process. The curiosity thing is that this focusing/sharp "ingredient", usually, was the only one "straight".

No worries! How about now?

Arklatexian · Sep 25, 2016

Mainecoonmaniac said:
Today, that type of photography seem prosaic. Back in the 20's, I'm sure this seemed cutting edge and going against convention of softness and painterly looks. I'm not absolutely true, but wasn't Pictorialism as an attempt as a photographic style that tried to mimic painting? The f/64 group went against this dynamic and made the most of a mechanical medium by trying to make everything sharp.

F/64 school of photography prevailed in modern culture until the 80's. I remember in the 90's reading a Photo District News article titled "The art of being blury". fashion photographers like Mathew Ralston setting the trend of using bokeh in his work. When I assisted out of college in the late 80's and early 90's, one commercial photographer wanted assistants that could calculate the focus on a Sinar 4x5 camera for maximum sharpness. Today, photographers treasure Petzval lenses with a swirly bokeh.

The more that I think about the "differences" between the "f:64 and the pictorialists", much is due to today's insistance on simplistic answers to what people thought in the past. We "assume" that the pictorialists were all, as has been said earlier, wannabe painters which, to me, brings up the question: why did other types of artists like this type of art? Could it be that there was a "feeling" about the results that were lacking in f:64 photography except in landscapes. I like most of AA's work that I have seen with the exception of his pictures of "people" and that might be the "simplistic" difference in the two. If Mortensen's type of pictorialism almost died, it was the fault of those of us who bought into the F:64 philosophy. I am among the guilty and for that I apologize. I am old enough to remember articles in the photo-magazines by Ansel Adams aimed at Mortenson, et al......Regards!

removed account4 · Sep 25, 2016

LAG said:
I meant that this type you're not interested in:

The terms refers to a "feature" that the group could not entirely leave to the print process. The curiosity thing is that this focusing/sharp "ingredient", usually, was the only one "straight".

No worries! How about now?

i kind of get it
thanks for explaining

although some may argue even focusing / composing / leaving things out /
what the actual sharp focus is on ( the rock or the tree if it isn't at infinity )
is manipulation too so none of it is straight, that is what i think is kind of funny.
there is so much chest puffing just because ...
AA said the negative is the composer's score and the print is the performance" yet when someone decides
to play the music differently it is punishable by death or calling them the antichrist.
the whole thing is laughable, and unfortunately the same old BS happens here ...
comments about "hipsters lomographers" or whatever ... just fabulous ..

Sirius Glass · Sep 25, 2016

oldtimermetoo said:
The more that I think about the "differences" between the "f:64 and the pictorialists", much is due to today's insistance on simplistic an swers to what people thought in the past. We "assume" that the pictorialists were all, as has been said earlier, wannabe painters which, to me, brings up the question: why did other types of artists like this type of art? Could it be that there was a "feeling" about the results that were lacking in f:64 photography except in landscapes. I like most of AA's work that I have seen with the exception of his pictures of "people" and that might be the "simplistic" difference in the two. If Mortensen's type of pictorialism almost died, it was the fault of those of us who bought into the F:64 philosophy. I am among the guilty and for that I apologize. I am old enough to remember articles in the photo-magazines by Ansel Adams aimed at Mortenson, et al......Regards!

You have nothing to apologize for. Mortensen's type of pictoricalism died because the public lost interest in it and that would have happened with or with the f/64 movement.

Theo Sulphate · Sep 25, 2016

Another false dichotomy. Some images look better when the subject is emphasized with a shallow depth of field, some look better when apparent focus extends from near to far.

Similarly, some look better in soft focus; others when tack sharp.

If your image is close to what you wanted to produce, you've succeeded.

Nokton48 · Sep 26, 2016

Theo Sulphate said:
Another false dichotomy. Some images look better when the subject is emphasized with a shallow depth of field, some look better when apparent focus extends from near to far. Similarly, some look better in soft focus; others when tack sharp.
If your image is close to what you wanted to produce, you've succeeded.

Yes that's it IMO. Speaking as someone who owns a lot of soft focus lenses.
If that is your intention then you have succeeded. Nothing has died.

Alan Johnson · Sep 26, 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/06/william-mortensen-photography-master-macabre
This article, in agreement with that from the Smithsonian, suggests that Mortensen also distained the "fuzzy wuzzies".
Contrary to the first link from petapixel, this seems to suggest that the debate with Adams was confined to criticism of Mortensen's style and possibly his processing technique and that it is not correct to put up Mortensen as a typical pictorialist. Further, pictorialism also faded away in other countries where these two were virtually unknown at the time so that Adams probably had little influence on its decline which would have occurred anyhow.

Mainecoonmaniac · Sep 26, 2016

Alan Johnson said:
Further, pictorialism also faded away in other countries where these two were virtually unknown at the time so that Adams probably had little influence on its decline which would have occurred anyhow.

Love the article. You're right about Adams had little influence on the fading away of Pictorialism. It's like David Lee Roth blaming Grunge for the decline of his career. Sometime styles of the times fade into irrelevance.
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/new...s_grunge_for_the_downslide_of_his_career.html

DREW WILEY · Sep 26, 2016

Everything out of style goes back in style as each generation rebels against the standards of the previous one. For example, how many thousands of "pictorial" images get posted on this forum each year?

Mainecoonmaniac · Sep 26, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
Everything out of style goes back in style as each generation rebels against the standards of the previous one. For example, how many thousands of "pictorial" images get posted on this forum each year?

What's old is always new. Some great new discovery. It's like teenagers discovering sex.

removed account4 · Sep 26, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
For example, how many thousands of "pictorial" images get posted on this forum each year?

not really sure, i see some soft focus images but i wouldn't call them pictorial ... once in a blue moon there is someone
who puts paint or colored pencil on a photograph, but i haven't seen emil schildt post images here in ages, ane he is one of the few
people here and on the lfinfo form who posts pictorial images, the other stuff are just photographs with a soft focus lens, or
someone shooting wide open .. its not quite the same as what a pictorial image is ...

DREW WILEY · Sep 26, 2016

Nearly all the young people around here that get into view camera photography do so for the sake of contact printing an old-fashioned alt look. The
problem with trying to make images that look like antique photographs, is that they do in fact look like they're TRYING to to look that way, and are
not the real deal, but wannabee. This has less to do with the lenses and printing medium than the mentality. Everybody is trying so hard to do
something different that they all end up doing the same different thing. Generational herd mentality. I don't look at the genre, but the details. You can take the stupidest once-trendy genre you can think of, like blatantly staged Victorian Pre-Raphaelitism, and with the eyes of Julia Cameron turn it into something timeless. Or you can takes fifty thousand f-64 style prints and none of them will have the same poetic sensitivity as some of AA's prints, even given the same nominal subject matter. Something has to truly resonate inside you first, when you trip the shutter, if it's ever going to resonate in a frame on the wall.

Mainecoonmaniac · Sep 26, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
Nearly all the young people around here that get into view camera photography do so for the sake of contact printing an old-fashioned alt look.

I think it's a good thing. Can't blame them for seeking something better

removed account4 · Sep 26, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
they do in fact look like they're TRYING to to look that way, and are
not the real deal, but wannabee

who cares if they are wannabes, pretty much every person who uses a camera does the exact same thing
they take the same photos as everyone else, whether or not they resonate with them first before they pressed the shutter.
probably 1000000 photos taken from the same tripod holes every year .. at least they do something they like and who knows
maybe by coping someone else they will latch onto something they like even better ...
pletny of painting students go to a museum and copy masterpieces .. that's how they learn.

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I think it's a good thing. Can't blame them for seeking something better

couldn't agree more, without new blood the medium is going to die,
with 50 old people talking about the old days and all the paper kodak used to make
back when they were young ... and no one making photographs

Bob Carnie · Sep 26, 2016

Mainecoonmaniac said:
Love the article. You're right about Adams had little influence on the fading away of Pictorialism. It's like David Lee Roth blaming Grunge for the decline of his career. Sometime styles of the times fade into irrelevance.
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/new...s_grunge_for_the_downslide_of_his_career.html

Hey David Lee Roth never faded , he's the best.

Mainecoonmaniac · Sep 26, 2016

Bob Carnie said:
Hey David Lee Roth never faded , he's the best.

He's not only the best, he's also a gigolo.

DREW WILEY · Sep 26, 2016

Of course it's a good thing in terms of keeping film and paper alive; and I'm eager to encourage the next generation. But that doesn't mean I give much of that work a second look. Regardless of when you were born, not many people get past convention. And those who try the hardest to be
"creative" are generally the least creative. In this town everybody with green hair and a nose ring thinks they're an artist.

Arklatexian · Sep 27, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
Nearly all the young people around here that get into view camera photography do so for the sake of contact printing an old-fashioned alt look. The
problem with trying to make images that look like antique photographs, is that they do in fact look like they're TRYING to to look that way, and are
not the real deal, but wannabee. This has less to do with the lenses and printing medium than the mentality. Everybody is trying so hard to do
something different that they all end up doing the same different thing. Generational herd mentality. I don't look at the genre, but the details. You can take the stupidest once-trendy genre you can think of, like blatantly staged Victorian Pre-Raphaelitism, and with the eyes of Julia Cameron turn it into something timeless. Or you can takes fifty thousand f-64 style prints and none of them will have the same poetic sensitivity as some of AA's prints, even given the same nominal subject matter. Something has to truly resonate inside you first, when you trip the shutter, if it's ever going to resonate in a frame on the wall.

Very well said. +1.........Regards!

phass · Sep 27, 2016

By quoting the article in http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-...el-adams-called-anti-christ-180953525/?no-ist :

"Mortensen was also particularly interested in the psychological impact of an image, much more so than any other photographer of his day, according to Lytle. "He was interested in Jungian psychology, particularly the collective unconscious and archetypes," Lytle says.

Carl Jung believed that we all share a layer of unconscious memories formed by our earliest ancestors, which is why many of the same images and ideas, or archetypes, resonate throughout the world. ..."

"Mortensen himself said that the grotesque had value for "the escape it provides from cramping realism." ..."

I'm not sure about you guys, but to me, I see direct branch of the symbolism/surrealism tree (do not forget that photographers have very limited toolbox in prePhotoshop days). And I'm talking about the meaning of final product rather than technique that was used.

Cheers.

DREW WILEY · Sep 27, 2016

I don't think the original Surrealists ever thought of Mortensen as one of their own. He was more into gross-out for the sake of gross-out, though
post-Freudian artistic explorations of the subconscious were perhaps a common denominator. And I made a mistake referring to him influencing AA's youthful work, which was more in the vein of Clarence White fuzzy-wuzzyism. He always detested Mortensen.

silveror0 · Sep 27, 2016

Mainecoonmaniac said:
He's not only the best, he's also a gigolo.

My Gawd Almighty. If this is an example of future international leaders, we can only hope they don't vote or reproduce. But of course we all know better. Some (not all) performing arts need a trash can.

Gerald C Koch · Sep 27, 2016

Sirius Glass said:
AA's and my problem with the Fuzzy Wuzzies is that they were painter wannabees. If they wanted their work to look like paintings, they should have been painting.

This notion is really too simplistic. One of the objectives of pictorialism is to deemphasize nonessential aspects of an image. In other words we do not need to see every leaf to know that a tree is a tree.

Another intent of Pictorialism is to concentrate the viewers attention on the subject. This idea and a bit of reverse psychology is illustrated as follows. Henry VIII was contemplating yet another marriage, this time to a German princess Anne of Cleves. He sent the painter Holbein to the German court to paint Anne so he could see what she looked like. What Holbein found was a rather plain looking young woman. This left him with the predicament, how to be faithful to his commission but not displease Henry or the Germans. He decided to paint Anne accurately but placed her in a sumptuous gown. The subject became the gown and not the princess. Henry saw the gown and not the homely girl and the rest is history.

There are more differences between Pictorialism abd the f/64 school and each one is perfectly valid.

Gerald C Koch · Sep 27, 2016

Calling Mortensen a pictorialist is a bit like calling the Grand Canyon a large ditch. His oeuvre encompassed many schools. From portraitist, realist to skilled image manipulator.

While I like Ansel Adams prints he does seem to be taking the same image over and over. The style never changes one iota. After awhile it gets a bit tedious.

Mainecoonmaniac · Sep 27, 2016

Ansel Adams came from the world of classical piano. His philosophy of "The negative is the score and the print is the performance". In the world of classical music, there very little room to be the bad boy. You can't interpret the music too far from the composer's intent. It's a very goody two shoes world. Everything sharply focused, properly exposed, no grain with absolute clarity. Mortensen on the other hand is complicated. There's ambiguity, sex, death and fear in his work. Neither is right or wrong. It's just preferences. Personally, I prefer and embrace the complex human condition which is messy. That's my interpretation of their work.

DREW WILEY · Sep 27, 2016

Some pretty misleading stereotypes here.

Didn't Ansel Adams called it the "Fuzzy wuzzies"?

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