What makes Ansel Adams so special?

MurrayMinchin · Jul 1, 2007

Roger Hicks said:
Yeah... People like Roger Fenton, Julia Margaret Cameron, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Brassai, Doisneau, David Bailey, Sebastiao Salgado -- who's ever heard of any of them?

Say What?!

Now we're poking people in the eye for quotes taken totally out of context?!!?

This puppies turning into one of those bi-monthly-ish attacks of a particularly nasty APUG affliction where topics of discussion get warped beyond belief.

Murray

DrPablo · Jul 1, 2007

Curt said:
Ansel Adams is so closely tied to a geography, the American Southwest, that it is hard to separate the two.

He's far more closely tied to the Sierra Nevada and to Northern California than he is to the American Southwest. And because some of his most iconic images are from the Tetons, from Alaska, from Hawaii, and from the southwest, I think it's fair to give him a defining role in images of the wild areas in the whole American west.

In fact what stands out about his photography in the American Southwest are not his landscapes, but rather his brilliant shots of churches and houses. His most striking shots of civilization are from that region.

David H. Bebbington said:
I personally find AA's work so oversentimentalized that its emotional impact on me is virtually zero.

Are you unmoved by Beethoven or Mozart because of their public esteem? Why can't you be moved (or unmoved) by the image itself and let the public think what it wants?

I think one reason AA is so loved is first that he didn't shoot any old landscapes -- he shot some of the most stunningly beautiful places in all of North America (though not all, of course), virtually all of which are tourist machines now. And he preserved them in a way that looks wild, dramatic, and timeless.

There are many other beautiful places, of course. But if he'd spent his career shooting the Appalachians, I don't think he'd have nearly this stature. Look at AA's recently deceased friend Bradford Washburn, who was every bit as good a landscape photographer as AA. But Washburn's best images are of the White Mountains in NH as well as from Alaska. These places, though truly majestic themselves, aren't nearly as loved as what AA shot.

It's as if AA somehow captured the sense of discovery people must have had in 1849 heading west to find gold. There really is something so American about his work.

lee · Jul 1, 2007

I am still waiting for R. Hicks and his minions to show me work that rivals Ansel Adams. For that matter it doesn't have to rival just a career and portfolio of over 50 years worth of photography. Talk is cheap.

lee\c

jovo · Jul 1, 2007

DrPablo said:
I think one reason AA is so loved is first that he didn't shoot any old landscapes -- he shot some of the most stunningly beautiful places in all of North America (though not all, of course), virtually all of which are tourist machines now. And he preserved them in a way that looks wild, dramatic, and timeless.

There are many other beautiful places, of course. But if he'd spent his career shooting the Appalachians, I don't think he'd have nearly this stature. Look at AA's recently deceased friend Bradford Washburn, who was every bit as good a landscape photographer as AA. But Washburn's best images are of the White Mountains in NH as well as from Alaska. These places, though truly majestic themselves, aren't nearly as loved as what AA shot.

.

Though I'll grant that this is true, I've had some fun reimagining some of AA's best loved images, but set close to home in the east. Many would work very well here in terms of subject (not the Yosemite views of course, but the more intimate landscapes). But....what's really different, I think, is the quality of the light. My experience of the west is that the air is far dryer, and seemingly cleaner, and the light is consequently more crisp and clear or seems so to me. There are photographs AA made in which the 'atmosphere' is so crystalline that it makes me take an extra breath. Just one more of the magic ingredients...

ongarine · Jul 1, 2007

I have, as European and Italian photographer, three points to focus on AA as photographer, the others sides of his life, not so pertaining with photo itself, are part of US culture developing.
The last of my point, IMO, is the heart of this long and winding thread:
1) I'm agree with the Jim Galli post about the same reaction of boring debate with AA like subject. Party of supporters and party of detractors fighting on and on around the importance and the uniqueness of his life work
The question posed by Jim is very interesting and could be a meditation on US history of photography and its reliance on AA work as nodal point:
Talk about Imogen or Dorothea and see how many hits you get.
This is the right question to start to have your feedbacks about part of the same photo history that is not so weel on the public eyes as AA "easy" pictures transformed in posters and public icons.
2) The example is posed by another US photographer affirmations:
And you have to admit - no one else has taken as iconic a photo of El Capitan as did AA!
I have in my eyes the marvellous images took more or less 50 before by Carleton Watkins and they are certainly different from the AA took, but not less iconic.
So history of US photography has some noble progenitors walking in Yosemite and making so stunning photos…why only AA has this speciality?
My only point is that AA is a (if not, THE) seminal landscape photographer. His art transcends his nationality even though it is virtually impossible to separate his nation (as a geographical locale) as the source of his art!
I really don’t agree with this affirmation because it is a sort of generalization of the meaning of photos for everyone who meets different subjects in differents world’s places.
3) The real question is: AA is a true UNIVERSAL ARTIST?
If this definition can exist.
Is the same question people coming in Italy posing about Michelangelo Buonarroti as main painter of Italian Renaissance, they really forgive that if there were no painters before Michelangelo, he never existed.
But they are influenced by the enormous amount of Giudizio Universale images they have seen everywhere therefore he is (for them) the Universal Artist.
May I say that every artist is universal and in the same time he is not because everyone of them has the roots well planted in the culture of his home.
The same is for AA that exist in the history of photography because there were and are, before him and after him, photographers who made images with which their are linked by the becoming of the history of photo.
AA is a great photographer but not the paradigm of the photography.

Videbaek · Jul 1, 2007

Hmmm.... the last post from Italy is some salvation for this sad, sad thread, patriotic chest-thumping and all good grief. Ansel Adams... I've seen some of his most famous and not so famous prints in person, very nice indeed. Lacking, for me, that spark of magic and interest that's needed to make a photographic picture exceptional. There is very little sense of composition, little interest in anything other than the self-evident angle of approach. Very little inventiveness, which fits the mechanical zone system thinking and execution. The American and European viewpoints are so different in the appreciation of Adams, as in all things. He's known of course, but just as a good photographer among many. Anyway, in my opinion (worth nothing!) landscape photography as a whole offers precious little artistic interest, with the nude following close behind.

gr82bart · Jul 1, 2007

Personally, I think if AA were alive today he'd be a digital photographer.

Regards, Art. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, right?)

juan · Jul 1, 2007

George Dunham wrote Mortensen's books, so perhaps one should love/hate Mortensen solely for his photography.
juan

DrPablo · Jul 3, 2007

By the way, I think Galen Rowell's pictures of El Capitan are more iconic than Ansel Adams.

Russ Young · Jul 3, 2007

Dr. P.-

Dead on. If a role model for color alpine images is required, the late Galen Rowell would be hard to exceed. There were also some superb European alpine photographers in the late 19th century as well, especially the French.

Russ

wayne naughton · Jul 3, 2007

davetravis said:
IMO, AA set the standard by which all the rest of us who shoot nature aspire to be like.
He was original.
DT

so that.... ummmm....makes you.....and all the other aspirationals...ummmm... unoriginal?????......how positively boring, dahling...... <G>

wayne

Changeling1 · Jul 3, 2007

Moonrise Hernandez, New Mexico

Scott Peters · Jul 3, 2007

He certainly helped generate 'awareness' of B&W photography as an 'art' - I like some of his work, but don't think he is in the Eward Weston category as photographers go, imo.

temujin · Jul 4, 2007

Gee if I had known that Ansel Adams had tried to erase Mortenson from history and destroy all traces of Martinson then I would have totally disregarded all of Ansel Adams work and not looked at any of it!

You don't have to tell me twice that someone is poison, this kind of information must be spread and spread fast, everybody must know what happened. Has anyone called CNN, BBC, CNC, GDP, and the Soviets?

That guy Adams had a lot of nerve spending almost all of his life living a lie while working on the extermination of the Mortenson.

There should be a Mount Martinson in Hollywood named after the portrait photographer William Mortenson. Better yet name a mountain near Murray's home after him, they are cuddly and well spoken up there.

What's next? Paul strand has a dispute with the great Steiglitz over a woman, or was that Stieglitz?, then shows his stuff to Ansel Adams down in the Southwest and influences him to go straight and kill off any collective memory of William Mortenson. [/QUOTE]

-the point is not that AA's art should be disregarded, it is that there is more to the art world than just pretty pictures, there is such a thing as principles and civilized behavior, but i am obviously wasting my breath trying to explain this to you.

MurrayMinchin · Jul 4, 2007

temujin said:
Better yet name a mountain near Murray's home after him, they are cuddly and well spoken up there.

Ummm, like, ummm ya, like that'd be like, ummm, good eh?

According to Statistics Canada I live in the fastest shrinking city in all of Canada...we could use the tourists even though those Mortenson fans would buy about as many of my photographs as the red necked hunters and fishermen we get now

Murray

MattKing · Jul 5, 2007

MurrayMinchin said:
Ummm, like, ummm ya, like that'd be like, ummm, good eh?

According to Statistics Canada I live in the fastest shrinking city in all of Canada...we could use the tourists even though those Mortenson fans would buy about as many of my photographs as the red necked hunters and fishermen we get now

Murray

Actually, Murray, what you need is retirees, with pensions. There's bound to be a few of them with both steady incomes, and excellent taste.

In my case, I'd love to visit.

Matt

Curt · Jul 5, 2007

...that he still is talked about and still gets under the skin of some people....

DrPablo · Jul 5, 2007

Scott Peters said:
He certainly helped generate 'awareness' of B&W photography as an 'art' - I like some of his work, but don't think he is in the Eward Weston category as photographers go, imo.

He's not in the Edward Weston category simply by virtue of subject matter -- and vice versa.

In terms of greatness I don't think you can compare across categories. I mean you can compare Cartier-Bresson and Arbus with one another, but you can't compare either with AA because his style and subject matter were entirely different.

Chuck_P · Jul 5, 2007

Curt said:
...still gets under the skin of some people....

True, very true. It is one fact regarding the legacy of AA that completely boggles my mind.

Scott Peters · Jul 5, 2007

DrPablo said:
He's not in the Edward Weston category simply by virtue of subject matter -- and vice versa.

In terms of greatness I don't think you can compare across categories. I mean you can compare Cartier-Bresson and Arbus with one another, but you can't compare either with AA because his style and subject matter were entirely different.

Hmmmm, sand dunes anyone? Landscape? There are certainly comparisons. Westons' greatness imo, is his excellence in diversity in photography, not one category with AA -

DrPablo · Jul 5, 2007

Scott Peters said:
Hmmmm, sand dunes anyone? Landscape? There are certainly comparisons. Westons' greatness imo, is his excellence in diversity in photography, not one category with AA -

There was great diversity in AA's subjects as well, everything from ground ferns to small thickets of trees to grand landscapes -- and that's not counting some of his scenes of towns and houses and churches in New Mexico, or his handful of portraits, or some of his playful compositions like the pair of scissors with string.

But I'm not sure diversity of photographic subjects is a very meaningful measure of greatness. Look at some of the artists who used many different media -- bronze sculpture plus oils plus watercolor, for instance. Or operas plus chamber music, for instance. That blows away the differences between photographing peppers versus photographing sand dunes. Operationally the process is pretty much the same, with small caveats about focus and composition and lighting.

But it's almost a moot comparison anyway. You're talking about two of the towering figures in the history of photography, not just because of their skill, but because of their visibility and influence. If one is more to your taste, then that's fine, but that isn't a cogent argument as to why one is 'greater' than the other, especially considering that you haven't acknowledged all of the non-landscape photographs that Adams created.

Earl Dunbar · Jul 5, 2007

In addition to the effect his vision & craft had at a time when photography was in its infancy and was reviled as an "art form", Ansel was so magnanimous in spirit, so generous of soul that I feel his life actually transcended his work.

As far as "his work is nevertheless very close to representational painting: it is about painstaking efforts to make a vivid impression on the viewer by the use of pictorial means.", I think I disagree. His final prints are very much a departure from representation, and his intent was more to put into physical form his vivid impressions and feelings. Granted he intended the viewer to also have a reaction, but had there not been one single person on earth to view his photos other than himself, he still would have made them.

Earl Dunbar · Jul 5, 2007

Scott Peters said:
Hmmmm, sand dunes anyone? Landscape? There are certainly comparisons. Westons' greatness imo, is his excellence in diversity in photography, not one category with AA -

I guess you have not seen any of his portraits, his interiors, his commercial work. Just because their publication is not as wide as other genres does not mean they don't exist.

cowanw · Jul 6, 2007

Earl Dunbar said:
I guess you have not seen any of his portraits, his interiors, his commercial work. Just because their publication is not as wide as other genres does not mean they don't exist.

And this is true for innumerable photographers around the world tht we know nothing about, including many Apuggers. So being known as special implies advertizing management. And it his business manager that is why,apart from talent originality or anything else admirable, Mr Adams is known as special.
Regards
Bill

DrPablo · Jul 6, 2007

Earl Dunbar said:
As far as "his work is nevertheless very close to representational painting: it is about painstaking efforts to make a vivid impression on the viewer by the use of pictorial means.", I think I disagree. His final prints are very much a departure from representation.

That's also true of representationational painters, whose paintings are seldom photorealistic or naturalistic, but often stylized or idealized. Ansel's photos are comparable to Albert Bierstadt's paintings in this regard.

What makes Ansel Adams so special?

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