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

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jtk

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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.[/QUOTE

Nothing rivals paint (or charcoal or gravure or silkscreen) but that doesn't stop wannabes from pretending.
That is probably the only thing I do not like about AA and his group. Writing the Pictorialists off the pages of history.
 

jtk

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What I meant by "misleading" is that stereotypes are made about certain famous photographers like AA based upon mass-reproduction of what is actually a small part of their overall work. If you take in his extensive portraiture, one-off small Polaroid shots, and actually decent examples of his
own early "fuzzy-wuzzies", that would probably change some opinions. F/64 was a brief manifesto mentality, which mellowed in time. But he was
widely recognized as a landscape photographer in this country by the 40's and 50's, both due to his major contribution to the National Park system
as a photographer and activist, and due to his core relation to planting photography departments in major museums, including a lot of work outside his personal genre preferences. Steichen was another early mover and shaker. But all along there were those sniping that AA was just a "rocks and trees" guy. Nonsense. He never made serious inroads into color photography, and I think he had a relation of envy toward Eliot Porter, who did, and whose coffee-table books soon overtook AA's black and white work in the heyday of land protection, when the battle turned from National Parks to designated Wilderness Areas. There was a famous big split in the movement between AA, who retained leadership of the Sierra Club, and David Brower, who split off and founded Friends of the Earth, and who passed away not too long ago here in town. AA accused Brower of spending too much money on color photography books and purged; but these book did have a huge public impact at the time.

Excellent and accurate.
 

Arklatexian

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Right. I have a box where I toss my "reject" photos (those that aren't good enough for an album, but not totally screwed up). Just yesterday I came across a photo shot out my window on a foggy day - soft, lots of flare, odd angle - now it looks interesting.
Good point. I read the "F 64" book not long ago and after thinking I was a fan of the group for years, I have decided they simply were caught up in "Us against Them" when it came to a blanket condemning of pictorial photography. Some of it was really bad, some was really good but it was the way they saw and photographed things just as I hope to do the same. My opinion as to why they see things their way has no more validity than anyone else's and that includes F 64 members and their diciples. F 64 may have been no more than a West Coast reaction to the East Coast photography of that period. In defense of AA (as if he needs it), he seemed to be the only level-headed one in the bunch but he too had a chip on his shoulder. As to Mortenson, I have seen work by people who studied with him and their work (B&W) was downright fascinating. I could never do it. I don't have the patience.........Regards!
 

jtk

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Good point. I read the "F 64" book not long ago and after thinking I was a fan of the group for years, I have decided they simply were caught up in "Us against Them" when it came to a blanket condemning of pictorial photography. Some of it was really bad, some was really good but it was the way they saw and photographed things just as I hope to do the same. My opinion as to why they see things their way has no more validity than anyone else's and that includes F 64 members and their diciples. F 64 may have been no more than a West Coast reaction to the East Coast photography of that period. In defense of AA (as if he needs it), he seemed to be the only level-headed one in the bunch but he too had a chip on his shoulder. As to Mortenson, I have seen work by people who studied with him and their work (B&W) was downright fascinating. I could never do it. I don't have the patience.........Regards!

It's interesting that few recall much photography from the East Coast during f64's heyday. I wonder why that is.

Stieglitz likely envied them...he certainly envied Weston's recognition.

I personally knew and admired (and agreed politically with, re Vietnam) Imogene Cunningham in San Francisco. Sadly I was timid about portraits at that time. She was typical of f64, a sparkplug who'd been very successful as a pictorial portraitist in Seattle.

All of the angst about f64 is predicated on ignorance.

It was a small group of Californians (meeting sometimes in Oakland) who felt the need to elevate photography for itself ("pure"), ending its identity as a derivative of painting . As we see on Photrio, pictorialism isn't dead. Some Members worry that Photoshop will revive it, while practicing it as "alternative".

People who have not read f64's short, and very clear Manifesto should do so before commenting on it. That ignorance should shame the journalists who mention it in print. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_f/64

Reading the Manifesto one will see that f64 recognized that some photographers want to be more like painters, just as some of its members had in the past. Some of photography's greatest were/are in fact painters, another point to keep in mind.
 

btaylor

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To loop that around to AA and f/64 members, the f/64 work was not for clients. It was to please themselves. Their commercial work was quite separate.
 

eddie

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Photography is a large tent. There's room for every method of photographic expression.
 

removed account4

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If you are doing it right this is why you were hired in the first place.

LOL not necessarily ... in a perfect world, sure this is true, but we don't live in a perfect world ...
kids graduate high school who can't do simple arithmetic, write or read ... i could go on
but im still looking for an influencer to impress..
 

DREW WILEY

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Somewhere I've got an old encyclopedia volume where Edward Weston contributed a long article on photography. It's just about the most rabid manifesto rant I've ever read condemning pictorialism and advocating a very narrow definition of visual rendering. The irony is that it would condemn most of his own best work, and probably close to 100% of his portrait studio fare. So I doubt he really even believed what he wrote. Just another way to make a buck and draw some attention.
 
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Jim Jones

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Weston contributed this comment on one aspect of fuzzy-wuzzies to the British Journal of Photography about a hundred years ago:

The Gummist


EDWARD H. WESTON


With Apologies to Rudyard Kipling, Author of "The Vampire"

A "gummist’ there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you and I!)
To some paint and some gum and a "badger-hair."
(We called his messing a daub "for fair")
But the "gummist" he called it his "art-work" rare
((even as you and I!)

O, the paint we did waste and the "tears" we did waste
And the prints that were always "slammed,"
By "would-be" critics who did not know
(And now we know that they never could know)
And did not understand.

A "gummist" there was and his coin he spent
(Even as you and I!)
Paper and paint to his last red cent
(While his land-lady dunned him for "past-due" rent)
(Even as you and I!)

O, the stain we got, and the flaky spot
And the bubble we cheerfully damned,
Belong to the day when we didn’t know why
The stock-house welcomed our efforts to buy
But now we understand!


The "gummist" he sweat through his foolish hide
(Even as you and I!)
While the highlights he scrubbed till they almost cried--
(With a bristle-brush none to softly applied)
When the print was "done," friends threw it aside
(Even as you and I!)

And it isn’t the worst that his feelings at first
Should a little calming demand--
It’s coming to know that folks never knew why
(Such doping and faking a "gummist" should try)
And never could understand.
 

Sirius Glass

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Somewhere I've got an old encyclopedia volume where Edward Weston contributed a long article on photography. It's just about the most rabid manifesto rant I've ever read condemning pictorialism and advocating a very narrow definition of visual rendering. The irony is that it would condemn most of his own best work, and probably close to 100% of his portrait studio fare. So I doubt he really even believed what he wrote. Just another way to make a buck and draw some attention.

Edward Weston turned against pictorialism in a big way. He destroyed his earlier negatives and prints so effectively that almost none of that work exists today.
 

jtk

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Somewhere I've got an old encyclopedia volume where Edward Weston contributed a long article on photography. It's just about the most rabid manifesto rant I've ever read condemning pictorialism and advocating a very narrow definition of visual rendering. The irony is that it would condemn most of his own best work, and probably close to 100% of his portrait studio fare. So I doubt he really even believed what he wrote. Just another way to make a buck and draw some attention.

No. you obviously don't have that "encyclopedia volume."

He apparently did destroy his pictorial work, just as many modern photographers destroy their own past work. A matter of integrity and advancing confidence, not "irony".

However we do have lots of his portraiture, some of which was done hand-held.
 
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removed account4

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yup
doing it right might be lowballing the bids to barely cover your materials
or having someone inside feeding you the low bid
or phasing the project and jacking up the prices after phase 1
or being related to the client ( where i live its called nepotism )
or his buddy from school ...
or there is no one in a 50-60 mile radius who can do it ..

doesn't necessarily mean you are doing it right

===
 

jtk

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yup
doing it right might be lowballing the bids to barely cover your materials
or having someone inside feeding you the low bid
or phasing the project and jacking up the prices after phase 1
or being related to the client ( where i live its called nepotism )
or his buddy from school ...
or there is no one in a 50-60 mile radius who can do it ..

doesn't necessarily mean you are doing it right

===

My success told it's own story... pro photo success means something to pros.

I never had to "bid", worked 90% in a big city, clients were all art directors or designers, my price was/is mid market and I rarely did reshoots, never had to. Never worked for govt agencies or anybody on govt or grant funding (i'm a capitalist snob).

I think my happy experience has had entirely to do with my work and client relations.

Your rant shrieks about hateful experiences. Personal, mafia, or just regional?
 

removed account4

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My success told it's own story...

i guess ? just cause you drop names doesn'tmean you are successful
anyone can do that, even a 13 year old girl on her parents' computer LOL
:whistling:

personal attacks are not permitted in the TOS.
 
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Sirius Glass

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i guess ? just cause you drop names doesnt' mean you are successful.
anyone can do that, even a 13 year old girl on her parents' computer LOL
:whistling:

personal attacks are not permitted in the TOS.


ROTFLMAO!!!!
 

Arklatexian

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The mark of a pro is pleasing the client BY pleasing oneself.
Wrong! The mark of a Pro is one who keeps his bills paid and is in business this time next year. What you described is a well-heeled "Fine Art": photographer who doesn't need to put food on his family's table with proceeds from his/her work. Anything else, not covered earlier, is a hobby! The IRS can certainly tell you the difference.....Regards!
 
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