Photo careers in the 21st century?

[DREW WILEY]

Neither, but the stereotype his financial success was just due to being lucky enough to live and work in a photogenic spot like Yosemite Valley. He scraped together a living just like we all have to do, and cumulatively acquired some wealth. But it's really his heirs and trust that became a little marketing empire, after he passed away.

In my opinion, Carleton Watkins, who also photographed in Yosemite and the San Francisco area, among other places in the West, was artistically the superior to AA, and well before him. But over the long haul, his stubborn ego often undercut his business sense.

 

[MattKing]

He scraped together a living just like we all have to do, and cumulatively acquired some wealth.

I'd suggest AA also lived an interesting and consequential and creative life - perhaps more valuable than monetary riches.

 

[btaylor]

I'd suggest AA also lived an interesting and consequential and creative life - perhaps more valuable than monetary riches.

I like that take on Mr. Adams.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Yes, and even while he is dead, he has done better than any of us will.

which work do you mean his commercial calendar and poster art ? his portraits ? his color work ?

how does one define "done better than any of us". selling a single photograph for 10,000$ or 4 million? having posters and calendars of work sold world wide ?
or the countless forgotten people who documented the daily lives or special moments had with friends and family or someone with IDK 1.8million "likes" on instagram?

Ignoring the money and fame. On a photograph by photograph basis or as a whole work, none of us will be better. Yes we each make some great photographs on occasion, but over life time he was better than we will be.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I don't envy Adams. I've managed to keep backpacking in the mountains forty years longer with big cameras than he did it, and did it on my own terms in relative solitude, without dealing with accompanying crowds on organized convoys. I can realistically state I've had more opportunities to enjoy the light without distraction, which is what it's really all about. I haven't had to pander to either art gurus or tourists. I could pick and choose where to be shown, back when I sought that kind of thing. Just a rite of passage as far as I'm concerned. I make prints for myself and not for the market, although I've certainly had my share of admirers who bought them.

AA deserves his place in history as a kinda combined pioneering figure bringing together both photography as an accepted art medium in tandem with the National Parks movement. None of us can ever repeat that. I can print better than him any day of the week. That doesn't give me bragging rights, however, because people like him and his teaching of photographic method are part of our present heritage and suite of advantages, just like improved lenses, cameras, and film. Breaking ground does count.

But people forget just how much AA himself was influenced by great landscape photographers prior to him, and there were a number of them. And how the hell can anyone state they know that the collected work of any of us is diminished by comparison - just cause they've never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Myopia. Sacred cow worshipping. Is that determined by auction prices? - if so, there are baseball cards worth even more. And I certainly didn't play second fiddle the one time I was exhibited side to side with him, except on the ad itself. Didn't need to compete either; different styles entirely. In that respect, there is no one "best". There's room for a lot of variety. Big fish in the photographic pond were once common around here, and many people wouldn't put AA at the head of that list, including myself. I can appreciate what he did far better than most, because I grew up in that kind of light; but there are many ways of interpreting it.

Another vote for what Matt already stated above. Enjoy the hunt, because in many ways, it's more important than the kill itself.

 

[removed account4]

Ignoring the money and fame. On a photograph by photograph basis or as a whole work, none of us will be better. Yes we each make some great photographs on occasion, but over life time he was better than we will be.

He ignored money and fame?
Maybe we are not talking about the same Ansel Adams? Everyone needs a myth I guess.

 

[DREW WILEY]

No, he meant aside from that set of issues - the intrinsic merits of the images instead.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Is photography a viable career path today?

if so, in what areas of specialization?

It appears that weddings, advertising and glamour are still viable areas for example.

I knowit's tempting to turn a hobby into a career but, too many people who try it end up without both. My advice is:keep our job and try your self photographically in one area.Then, if that hows to be successful, think about it again.

 

[removed account4]

No, he meant aside from that set of issues - the intrinsic merits of the images instead.

its impossible to ignore those issues because without his fame and notoriety we would know nothing of his photography..
and if we judge him as a blank slate with images only, IDK ... not sure if you have seen images printed by him but some say they leave a lot to be desired.
I've seen things in museums and to be honest they kind of left me wondering how such bad prints made it into the museum. no im not a hater, just a realist, someone who has worked as a commercial printer for clients and who has seen his fair share of good and bad prints. last year I saw other exhibits of well known images by heavy hitters ( IDK 300+ images ) and they weren't very well printed either ... nothing like Irving penn ... that guy had chops.
if we leave his fame and $ out of his commercial / studio / assignment work too well, his architecture and interior / commercial work is kind of flat compared to his contemporaries like shullman, and others who regularly presented images for architectural firms and publications like architectural digest and architectural record, and his portrait work image by image falls flat if you compare him to portraitists of his generation like strand, sanders, karsh, smith &c.
maybe I have just seen the wrong images so my judgement is all off, but there are a lot of people suffer through hero worship, they are put on pedestals and have myths written about them... and their work certainly is as good as AA's ( and some aren't) .. and some don't have myths around them and they post on this very website and their work is fantastic ... IDK. it seems if he didn't have the fame &c he would be just like that guy whose work they found in a yard sale and thought was ansel adams.. just a regular person with a camera,
or these days. just someone with a instagram account ...

But people forget just how much AA himself was influenced by great landscape photographers prior to him, <...>

exactly, he brought the 19th century romantics and topographics into the 20th century. kind of hard not to be influenced by people and places you are surrounded by.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

I went through Carmel about 30 years ago and was led into the back of a gallery to look through photos In storage drawers.

Two things made an impression on me;

1) Ansel had lint in his skies just like me and,

2) Wynn Bullock's 'Driftwood 1951' knocked me back and took my breath away.

I'm like Drew (and probably like many other people here) in that I've kept my photography more personal expression than a vehicle to generate cash.

 

[BradS]

I knowit's tempting to turn a hobby into a career but, too many people who try it end up without both. My advice is:keep our job and try your self photographically in one area.Then, if that hows to be successful, think about it again.

Thanks Ralph. I'm not looking for a career - already had one and am very happily and comfortably retired.

I remember for a while, when I was young, wanting to be a photographer for Life Magazine or National Geographic but...well, luckily, I was good at other things.

 

[Mike Lopez]

...And how the hell can anyone state they know that the collected work of any of us is diminished by comparison - just cause they've never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Myopia. Sacred cow worshipping...

This exactly. This is spot on. Or perhaps you haven't heard that the myopic cow worshipper is omniscient as well?

 

[Jim Jones]

If Ansel Adams saw further than many other photographers, it is because he, like Isaac Newton, stood on the shoulders of giants. The iconic Adams photo of the Canyon de Chelly pleases me less than a similar photo taken 69 years earlier by Timothy O'Sullivan. Adams must have been familiar with the pioneering photography of William Henry Jackson, Carleton Watkins, and perhaps more inventive and artistic Eadweard Muybridge. They often labored under grueling conditions with primitive equipment, but produced large negatives with sometimes exquisite detail.

 

[Sirius Glass]

He ignored money and fame?
Maybe we are not talking about the same Ansel Adams? Everyone needs a myth I guess.

I said ignoring money and fame. No where did I say that Ansel did. Why can't you read things as they are written rather than twisting it to impossible things, much like your adding and removing objects from photographs?

 

[Mike Lopez]

I said ignoring money and fame. No where did I say that Ansel did. Why can you read things as they are written rather than twisting it to impossible things, much like your adding and removing objects from photographs?

I think you mean to say "why CAN'T you.," oh omniscient one.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

much like your adding and removing objects from photographs?

That Sir, is the definition of Bad Form.

You may ascribe to Ansel's "If I am to photograph a rock, I must present a rock" (quote from memory) philosophy, but not every artist has to plod the same narrow path.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Full quote here:

“If I have any credo it may be this: If I choose to photograph a rock, I must present a rock. The print must augment and enlarge the experience of a rock, stress tone and texture, yet never, under any conditions ‘dramatize’ the rock, nor suggest emotional or symbolic connotations other than what is obviously associated with the rock.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/18/archives/going-out-guide.html

I love jnantz's sense of freedom to explore off the narrow path!!!!!!!!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, to turn things just a tiny bit back the other direction, AA did have a tremendous poetic sensitivity in his finest images, which many people overlook, because they respond to the nominal subject matter itself first. When those "Uncle Earl" pictures of Yosemite came out, and were claimed to be early AA images, I instantly knew they were by someone else, even though a reasonably competent photographer was involved, because he simply didn't have the same poetic sense as the early version of AA.

As far a messy negs are involved - ha! - I was in the back room of one of those Carmel galleries once where some poor stiff had the tortuous task of spotting out a huge mosquito silhouette right in the middle of an Alaskan sky. It had come to rest on his film right when the shot was taken. And I'd imagine his early use of his own linty sleeping bag for a film changing tent would have led to utter hell in spotting.

So I'm in squarely in the camp of genuinely respecting AA for both his accomplishments and personal style, but would prefer all that to be put in realistic context along with the considerable number of other photographers also doing significant work both before, during, and after his own time. If I were given all the money I needed to buy exactly one black and white print ever, I'd spend it on Watkins or Brett Weston or Sella, or possibly Muybridge first, rather than AA.

 

[MatthewDunn]

...much like your adding and removing objects from photographs?

Completely and totally over the line.

 

[MattKing]

Completely and totally over the line.

I need to add an interesting sky to my next round of postcards ....

 

[MurrayMinchin]

It's too bad Sirius Glass isn't as open minded as Ansel. Hard to imagine a contemporary of Ansel's who's work was as different from his as Minor White, yet:

White moved to San Francisco in July and lived in the same house as Adams for several years. While there Adams taught White about his Zone System method of exposing and developing negatives, which White used extensively in his own work. He wrote extensively about it, published a book and taught the exposure and development method as well as the practice of (pre)-visualization to his students.

While in San Francisco White became close friends with Edward Weston in Carmel, and for the remainder of his life Weston had a profound influence on White's photography and philosophy. Later he said "...Stieglitz, Weston and Ansel all gave me exactly what I needed at that time. I took one thing from each: technique from Ansel, the love of nature from Weston, and from Stieglitz the affirmation that I was alive and I could photograph."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_White

The New Zone System Manual rocked my world and changed the way I work. I'm glad White could step out of Ansel's shadow...this is how art evolves.

 

[juan]

You people need to stop being so negative. I’m planning to make millions.

 

[removed account4]

Completely and totally over the line.

That Sir, is the definition of Bad Form

naa ... nothing new for them, its the SSDD ... been that way for a long time since they joined. its too bad, cause im sure they have more to add to a conversation than insults and harsh comments...

I need to add an interesting sky to my next round of postcards ....

now that's over the line! ... the horizon line!

 

[Don_ih]

Why do people talk so much about Ansel Adams and so little about Edward Steichen or Paul Strand or Walker Evans? Those latter three seem much more significant. Adams is like decor - I think I saw him framed at Walmart.

 

[Mike Lopez]

Why do people talk so much about Ansel Adams and so little about Edward Steichen or Paul Strand or Walker Evans? Those latter three seem much more significant. Adams is like decor - I think I saw him framed at Walmart.

Likely the same reason people talk about Thomas Kinkade and not Klee, Kline, Rothko, etc: because it's facile and abundant. It's very easy to prop yourself up and claim that the guy whose work you look at on your calendar or screensaver every day is the greatest thing that will ever come along. It's a bit more challenging to see beyond that.