Weston or Adams

lxdude · Jan 23, 2011

jnanian said:
without both of them
we wouldn't be doing this today .. that said ...
i'm partial to gomez aadams, more then the others

More than the Weston meter?

Jeff Kubach · Jan 23, 2011

Don't confuse me!

Jeff

Jon Shiu · Jan 23, 2011

One fellow was tall and liked to climb up on cars to photograph the landscape. The other fellow was short and closer to the ground level.

Jon

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Jan 23, 2011

Timestep · Jan 23, 2011

I agree for Weston, but even Edward considered Brett the better photographer.

This takes nothing away from Ansel Adams.

keithwms · Jan 23, 2011

PVia said:
Photography is not a contest.

+1

flash26c · Jan 23, 2011

Yet another vote for Weston: Brett

BOBBYCTKR · Jan 23, 2011

Bob Dylan, hands down for me.

guitstik · Jan 23, 2011

Carleton Watkins or Alfred Stieglitz.

Adams sought out Stieglitz for advice and direction he also emulated a lot of Watkins work.

2F/2F · Jan 23, 2011

Does the winner get a prize?

Andrew K · Jan 23, 2011

do I have to pick one of them? For me their work is on par - some of it exceptional, some just very, very good..

funnily enough I also tend to prefer Brett Weston's work to his fathers....

But given a choice of a photographer from this era I would pick Manuael Alvarez Bravo, Paul Outerbridge or Walker Evans as having far more influence on me

phaedrus · Jan 23, 2011

These differences in post-mortem reception could have something to do with the difference in written material they left for posteriority. Though Ansel Adams was a likeable enough fellow by all accounts, his books are more professorial. The Daybooks, though, allow us an intimate look into an artist's life and have served as a template for many.

ciocc · Jan 23, 2011

Weston. He photographed people, still life and landscapes. He did well with all of them. Adams' people photography was lousy in my opinion. No life in those photos. The people are stiff, like mummies. It doesn't hold a candle to what Weston did with people. You can tell that Weston really connected with the people he photographed. Strange, because Adams supposedly was a really likable guy. Adams' still life is close, but not quite equal to Weston. Adams' landscape photo's are definitely on par with Weston, but my favorite landscape photos were made by Weston. Just my two cents.

23mjm · Jan 23, 2011

Adams---his 3 books The Camera, The Negative, & The Print taught me more about the art of photography than any other source. I love Adams as much as an educator as I do as a photographer.

Wayne · Jan 24, 2011

Brett Weston. But Ansel was my introduction to all that LF had to offer, and I loved his work when I discovered it. While some of it impresses me less than it once did, it led me on to Edward, Brett and many others, some of whom surpassed Adams in my mind. But without Adams I might never have found out about the world of LF. Ansel Adams is a gateway drug who started the whole addiction.

Jim Jones · Jan 24, 2011

Ansel Adams inspired many others to do the grand landscapes. Weston perhaps inspired his friend Ruth Bernhard to do the meticulously staged nudes that excelled the older master's. We should admire both Adams and at least one of the Westons for the way they promoted photography. We should enjoy both of their own works, depending on the moment, as we can be uplifted by both Bach and Beethoven.

c6h6o3 · Jan 24, 2011

Adams was an illustrator, perhaps the best there ever was. Edward Weston and his son Brett were artists. Their work is about the space within the confines of the image and how the subject creates it or disrupts it whereas Adams' work, at least after 1940, is only about the subject.

Lee L · Jan 24, 2011

Not always true, but we often make it so:

"Comparison is the thief of joy." Theodore Roosevelt

André E.C. · Jan 24, 2011

I admire the book "Trees" from Adams, but overall, Weston was way more complete as a photographer, Adams had that tremendous technical knowledge edge, Weston had a more powerful vision, IMHO.

Weston anytime, no doubt!

TheFlyingCamera · Jan 24, 2011

I'm sorry to be a wet blanket here but this question is right up there with "Leica vs. Hasselblad". Asking it is as if there are only two flavors of one approach to photography, both of which in this case reached their apogee in the 1950s. There is so much more to photography than high modernism, of which Adams and Weston are but two examples, distinct in their own way, but cut very much from the same cloth.

In the end they're both just rock-and-tree (and kelp-and-tidepool-and the occasional naked woman)-porn. What about Siskind? Strand? Walker Evans? Manuel Alvarez-Bravo? Eliot Porter? Anyone here have a hero OTHER than Adams or Weston???? I'd hate to think that collectively APUG is little more than a collection of remaindered mass-market "art" calendars in the outlet mall...

lxdude · Jan 24, 2011

Well, the original question was specific...

Of that "type" of photography I prefer Wynn Bullock.

keithwms · Jan 24, 2011

TheFlyingCamera said:
In the end they're both just rock-and-tree (and kelp-and-tidepool-and the occasional naked woman)-porn. What about Siskind? Strand? Walker Evans? Manuel Alvarez-Bravo? Eliot Porter? Anyone here have a hero OTHER than Adams or Weston???? I'd hate to think that collectively APUG is little more than a collection of remaindered mass-market "art" calendars in the outlet mall...

There, there Scott

Henri Cartier-Bresson said:
The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks!

Wayne · Jan 24, 2011

Elliot Porter and Cole Weston are the reason I switched from B&W to color 20 years ago. E. Kanomicks brought me back to B&W.

BOBBYCTKR · Jan 24, 2011

lxdude · Jan 24, 2011

Wayne said:
Elliot Porter and Cole Weston are the reason I switched from B&W to color 20 years ago. E. Kanomicks brought me back to B&W.

Knott Lotta Cash has influenced others the same way.

Weston or Adams

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