Interesting article on Ansel Adams' "Pure photography"

[Mainecoonmaniac]

This is gonna cause some controversy.

https://petapixel.com/2022/03/10/computational-photo-pioneer-no-such-thing-as-a-straight-photograph/

 

[faberryman]

Contrary to Levoy's pronouncement, "straight photography" is not a myth, it is a description of a photographic style, and is historical in nature. It is like saying Impressionism, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, Fauvism, Dadaism, Futurism, Suprematism, etc. are myths. Nonsense. But I understand the need to be provocative.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Levoy does not know what he is talking about. Just another hack not able to pay his bills writes some bunk to get a paycheck. Nothing happening here folks. Move on.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I know I posted this link, but should we pay attention to him but perhaps refer to art historians instead? Levoy is after all more of an engineer and not and artist nor an art historian.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I know I posted this link, but should we pay attention to him but perhaps refer to art historians instead? Levoy is after all more of an engineer and not and artist nor an art historian. Adams was way ahead of his time. Most photographers earlier in the 20th century tried to mimic paintings, while Adams moved away from this convention. IMHO Levoy states his view from a modern perspective devoid of historical context.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I know I posted this link, but should we pay attention to him but perhaps refer to art historians instead? Levoy is after all more of an engineer and not and artist nor an art historian.

For an article about any photographer's style or artist's work, I would want hear from an art historian, photographer or artist, the last two ones who know what they were talking about. I appreciate Tom, that you are passing on interesting articles that you find. Sucks, someone needs to do it and you do do a good job.

 

[Light Capture]

The whole Petapixel article is longer than original interview on Adobe blog where it's only mentioned briefly in one sentence without elaboration.
The sentence where it's originally mentioned makes it relatively clear that straight photography term is probably wrongly applied to something else here.
Certainly there is photography that requires no editing and straight use (it probably implies to this but not sure how precise is that).

Debate should always be welcome.
There is certainly lack of vigorous more public debate in today's photographic world like there was one between proponents of Pictorialism and proponents of Pure photography.
Practitioners of Pure photography certainly used all ways available to manipulate and edit in order to achieve desired results. They just had different desired results in their minds compared Pictorialists.
The same goes for debate between form and substance. What is art and what is craft and so on. Very rarely there's a clear cut.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

This is going to come down to a debate about the meaning of words - most arguments do.

I'm firmly with Ansel. Straight photography - I may not be able to define it but I know it when I see it. Adams, Steiglitz, Weston et fils, Evans, et al.: straight. Phone camera and someone dictating what the result should look like, Caravagio or Picaso's Blue Period: crooked at worst, slightly serpentine at best.

 

[Sirius Glass]

This is going to come down to a debate about the meaning of words - most arguments do.

I'm firmly with Ansel. Straight photography - I may not be able to define it but I know it when I see it. Adams, Steiglitz, Weston et fils, Evans, et al.: straight. Phone camera and someone dictating what the result should look like, Caravagio or Picaso's Blue Period: crooked at worst, slightly serpentine at best.

This is going to come down to a debate about the meaning of words - most arguments do. Of this we know much!

 

[radiant]

The mistake was already made when this kind of things are started to put into words.

It is like analyzing feelings in radians.

 

[Helge]

He’s merely trying to rationalize and defend what he does for a living.
To himself and to the world.
It’s important to get a clear idea about exactly what the Straight Photographers and the f/64 group reacted against, how and why.
Also what other reactions there was away from naive, rampant Pictorialism, because Stieglitz and friends was certainly not alone.
What we have today is basically Pictorialism again. Only now with way worse references and inspirations.
Pictorialism is a problem when it turns into a method and nothing but.

 

[Brendan Quirk]

Ansel Adams certainly had a style. But I would submit that a blurry pinhole camera paper negative image is also straight photography.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Ansel Adams certainly had a style. But I would submit that a blurry pinhole camera paper negative image is also straight photography.

That is not the f/64 movement he and others engaged in.

 

[juan]

Having seen period prints of Adams’s early work as well as later, I’d say he had several styles.
Levoy promotes himself as a computational photographer. Different tools, different styles, different viewpoints.

 

[Helge]

From Ansels Camera and Lens

 

[faberryman]

Levoy does not know what he is talking about. Just another hack not able to pay his bills writes some bunk to get a paycheck. Nothing happening here folks. Move on.

Levoy is an accomplished scientist and engineer specializing in computational photography. He is a Professor Emeritus at Stanford, worked at Google for nearly a decade, and is now a Fellow at Adobe. Jaron Schneider is the hack. He is currently the editor of PetaPixel and author of the article, which is a shallow copy and paste job from a write-up about Levoy appearing on the Adobe website. Naturally, the title of the article is clickbait.

 

[gone]

Contrary to Levoy's pronouncement, "straight photography" is not a myth, it is a description of a photographic style, and is historical in nature.

This is absolutely true. Unfortunately, photographic styles usually get lumped together under the "photography" label.

Many years ago I sent some scans to a gallery in New Smyrna, Fl, and while the owner liked the pics, she wondered why I was photographing in that manner? She wanted to know if I had any pics that were "more artsy"! At the time I got flustered w/ her, but now I understand that most people, and probably a lot of photographers, just don't get straight photography. Which a good thing to keep in mind if you're considering showing in a gallery or something like that.

I used a lot of the pandemic lock down time learning darkroom printing, and was going to send some of the work to a few galleries to yje area I want to move to, but caught myself. So I bought a bunch of Ilford FB papers to practice different techniques with, and once I find a few that work that's what I'll send. I told my neighbor that if I sent them the straight photography pics I was going to get pigeon holed as a straight photographer, which is the last thing that's wanted or needed.

This will be my first photography show, but I've had shows of paintings and such so I know how it works. If I exhibit some art photos, than I'm freed up to do any sort of photography w/o being labeled as this or that.

 

[Brendan Quirk]

That is not the f/64 movement he and others engaged in.

That is my point. The f/64 movement did not require no manipulation. Conversely, the lack of manipulation, or "straight" photography is not synonymous with f/64. When we conflate theses things, we obscure the issues.

 

[Sirius Glass]

That is my point. The f/64 movement did not require no manipulation. Conversely, the lack of manipulation, or "straight" photography is not synonymous with f/64. When we conflate theses things, we obscure the issues.

I never said it was straight photograph, the writer did. The f/64 Movement defined itself and published its definition.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

This is absolutely true. Unfortunately, photographic styles usually get lumped together under the "photography" label.

Many years ago I sent some scans to a gallery in New Smyrna, Fl, and while the owner liked the pics, she wondered why I was photographing in that manner? She wanted to know if I had any pics that were "more artsy"! At the time I got flustered w/ her, but now I understand that most people, and probably a lot of photographers, just don't get straight photography. Which a good thing to keep in mind if you're considering showing in a gallery or something like that.

I used a lot of the pandemic lock down time learning darkroom printing, and was going to send some of the work to a few galleries to yje area I want to move to, but caught myself. So I bought a bunch of Ilford FB papers to practice different techniques with, and once I find a few that work that's what I'll send. I told my neighbor that if I sent them the straight photography pics I was going to get pigeon holed as a straight photographer, which is the last thing that's wanted or needed.

This will be my first photography show, but I've had shows of paintings and such so I know how it works. If I exhibit some art photos, than I'm freed up to do any sort of photography w/o being labeled as this or that.

Some of my favorite pictures are those you see in travel magazines or travel postcards that represent in the picture what the place really looks like when you visit as a regular vacationer. I appreciate them a lot because it allows me to escape into a far-off place that seems to represent beauty but realistic beauty, and foreign adventure, not some idealized place dramatized by Photoshop. Of course, travel photographers are often laughed at by "real" photographers who really understand "art". What happens, is each visionary photographer tries to outdo the last image pushing PS beyond its limits. But the results aren't realistic but an idealized and often phony-looking view.

 

[BrianShaw]

All of this Ansel Adams talk put me in a creative mood. I call this “Moonrise over telephone wires”… whatever telephone wires are.

 

[DREW WILEY]

All of that "straight, pure, direct" kind of talk was relative, in opposition to the former prevailing Pictorial mode with its soft focus lenses and sometimes stagecraft. It was also basically self-promoting propaganda.
A number of them went through the transition itself, especially Steichen and Edward Weston; but even AA had his own "fuzzy wuzzy" episode. In terms of actual print beauty, I personally prefer the previous Steichen and Weston to the subsequent "pure" versions, but admire their later work too. On a bookshelf, I have an old Encyclopedia Brittanica volume with an article written on "Photography" by EW. It's an utter windbag manifesto of some hypothetical purified extreme in their own kind of etheral annoying "art speak", which Weston never himself consistently practiced, even during the f/64 phase. But that's the way they canonized themselves and Paul Strand, and sent Clarence White to purgatory instead. They were too timid to criticize Stieglitz, the sponsor of many of them in both modes. Double standard.

 

[snusmumriken]

For an article about any photographer's style or artist's work, I would want hear from an art historian, photographer or artist, the last two ones who know what they were talking about.

The trouble with that POV is that the article is about the system for capture and rendition, which is necessarily technical. If it was about the content of the image, I would definitely agree with you. Applying filters on my iPhone could be seen as a way of achieving artistic expression, but it is definitely part of the technology. The same is true for using a filter in film photography, or choosing a film or format, or even choosing photography over painting or sculpture. It is only if the choices made support the (choice of) content that they can be said to be part of an artistic vision. That's the way I see it, anyway.

I went to an exhibition of Ansel Adams' work in London many years ago. I realise this will be blasphemy for some forum members, and it's a personal thing, but the truth is that I was awed by the quality of Adams' prints, but much less so by the content. I had the feeling that what Adams pursued was technique rather than message. Of course I bought 'The Negative' and 'The Print' and studied them minutely!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, many of the places AA was most famous for photographing were almost literally my back yard. I grew up surrounded by those deep canyon and peaks, photographed them myself long before I ever saw an actual AA print (just a few poorly printed magazine shots). Yosemite was nearby, but we locals avoided all the tourist areas like the gift shop where his work was shown. What I'm trying to suggest is that I myself became extremely attuned to that mountain light, and therefore can attest from my own experience, not any art critic talk, just how sensitive AA was to it too. One has to be deeply immersed in it for awhile to really understand what's going on in his best work. Just being a Zone System Zombie or an f/64 wannabee is not the same thing at all. It's about seeing. Of course, we each have a personal style, and AA had his. No, I don't place him on my own "A" list of great printmakers per se; but he did know how to take what he saw and shot and effectively communicate it on printing paper, even poetically quite often.

So "content" is a somewhat culturally defined. When my older brother was studying commercial photography at a Photo Academy, the instructors just dismissed AA as a "rocks and trees" guy. Well, as someone for whom rocks and trees were the real world, I found much of their artsy urban photography boring. And frankly, I find most "message" photography to be contrived, even predictable. It doesn't have to be that way, anymore that a landscape shot has to be just another stereotypical postcard. But to be fair, you have to put yourself into the frame of mind of a certain time and place, often different than your own. For those Americans who grew up during the golden age of new interstate highways and the expansion of National Parks, the work of AA became iconic. If you have access to Ken Burn's excellent PBS documentaries on National Parks you'll get a good idea.

Ansel's technique was just a means toward an end. I don't think his tool kit was even particularly fancy for his own day. Most commercial labs had way better equipment; and there were a number of color printmakers in his own neighborhood with way more darkroom tricks up their sleeves than him. Everything in "The Negative" and "The Print" is quite elementary anyway. I gave away my copies long ago.

 

[JNP]

The idea that Sir Ansel and his group practiced straight photography, photography that was completely unmanipulated is a myth. Photography is by definition manipulation, it manipulates time, and light. They just took the modernist approach as Paul Strand demonstrated with his portraits published in Camera Work. Anyone who thinks for 1 hot New York second that F64 people were actually making straigh (unmanipulated) photographs is a rubber.

Levoy does not know what he is talking about. Just another hack not able to pay his bills writes some bunk to get a paycheck. Nothing happening here folks. Move on.

He is as knowledgeable as anyone else who writes opinion articles on Internet forums and magazines. He knows exactly what he is talking about.