Why do you think Ansel Adams is better known than William Mortensen?

[Mainecoonmaniac]

It’s a dynamic relationship.
Ansel was wise and lucky in pushing himself as an authority through writing, influential friends and works that was finely tuned to be just the right amount of new and old.
And he didn’t try to tamp down mounting deification of him, even if it involved his more mundane endeavors.

I think as most artist can't afford tamping down on fame. Most artist struggle because they're poor at promoting themselves. Yes he's the right amount of the new and old. I saw a video of him experimenting with electronic manipulation of his images. Let's not forget he's also an environmentalist also.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Adams first described his early technique 3 years before Mortensen's article linked in post 364 in 4 articles in "Camera Craft".
Aspects of his technique are rather spread out over the articles and this was before he devised the zone system.
Photography a record of reality, glossy paper for prints:
https://archive.org/details/cameracraft411934phot/page/19/mode/1up
Some substance in the brightest and darkest areas of the print:
https://archive.org/details/cameracraft411934phot/page/72/mode/1up
The portrait as a record, sometimes developed for longer to avoid flattening skin tones:
https://archive.org/details/cameracraft411934phot/page/114/mode/1up
Commercial photography of that era:
https://archive.org/details/cameracraft411934phot/page/n196/mode/1up
Before the zone system he used ABC Pyro developer ,varying the carbonate to get the effect wanted.
The next year 1935 he published his first technical book "Making a Photograph", today it is rare and expensive.

 

[removed account4]

Hi Alan:
Do you have access to the June 1917 issue of Camera Work? It would be interesting to read the final issues where Alfred Stieglitz ushered in the new beginning of photography through the introduction of Paul Strand / "straight photography". I'm no expert on Mortensen or Adams but. .. it seems to pretty much set the stage for Adams.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Quite a story of Camera Work, when Steiglitz had to close it down he sold several thousand copies to a rag & bone man and destroyed most of the rest. Lately a complete original set sold for over $300,000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_Work#:~:text=Camera Work was a quarterly photographic journal published,purpose to establish photography as a fine art.
Here is the last edition introducing Paul Strand "without tricks or manipulation"
https://modjourn.org/issue/bdr570086/
Not sure how AA & Mortensen fit in.

 

[removed account4]

Not sure how AA & Mortensen fit in.

The way I see it Paul Strand and Ansel Adams represent the same sort of modern view of straight photography, photography without tricks or manipulation. Mortensen represents of the same sort of "tricks and manipulation" that the Photo-Secessionists / Pictorialists were known for -- working the paper negative pushing the limits of artistic expression through hand-work (compared with the truthful and the magic of the camera being a device to capture the world). Camera Work was the quarterly journal of the Photo-Secessionists, which pretty much ended after they published the work of Strand who was a new beginning. Slow death of pictorialism and all ( even though there are some people today that make prints the old way ) and sure a bit of hypocrisy seeing Adams fully manipulated his images in other ways, I guess it wasn't something like a bromoil or oil print, you know, more of an "accepted" manipulation. It seems like Mortensen is the last lingering representation of the old way of doing things. The modern age was trying to leave behind all that old stuff, the same way modern architecture that sprang up between the wars tried to ditch heavy romanesque architecture of the late 1800s (think HH Richardson +Louis Sullivan vs Gropius and van Der Rhoe).
Maybe Im wrong seeing its out with the old and in with the new, but seems to fit.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Paul Strand got a few pictures published in a quarterly magazine which around that time had 37 subscribers
I doubt this rocked the world of pictorial photography.
That happening is usually attributed to AA and his group seventeen years later in the articles linked above from 1934 onwards.
Mortensen was still publishing booklets in the 1950s, there is download book about him on this site:
https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/641042

 

[removed account4]

Paul Strand got a few pictures published in a quarterly magazine which around that time had 37 subscribers
I doubt this rocked the world of pictorial photography.
That happening is usually attributed to AA and his group seventeen years later in the articles linked above from 1934 onwards.
Mortensen was still publishing booklets in the 1950s, there is download book about him on this site:
https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/641042

Really ??
37 subscribers. ??
I was under the impression that it was a widely read publication... and Alfred you as well known within photographic and art circles having was an influential fellow.The linked Ring, nyc and Boston camera clubs knew of him, known for The Steerage connections with Alvin Langdon colburn steichen, Clarence white and others, gallery 291, armory show rubbing elbows with Art salon types in the states and in England / Europe in other words he had influence, I’m sure he had quit a bit of influence in the photographic world at the time... it wasn’t just 37 subscribers who might have heard his views....

 

[SchwinnParamount]

Really ??
37 subscribers. ??
I was under the impression that it was a widely read publication... and Alfred you as well known within photographic and art circles having was an influential fellow.The linked Ring, nyc and Boston camera clubs knew of him, known for The Steerage connections with Alvin Langdon colburn steichen, Clarence white and others, gallery 291, armory show rubbing elbows with Art salon types in the states and in England / Europe in other words he had influence, I’m sure he had quit a bit of influence in the photographic world at the time... it wasn’t just 37 subscribers who might have heard his views....

^^^ What he said. Especially if you read The History of Photography by Beaumont Newhall

 

[Alan Johnson]

I believe the main debate between the purists and the pictorialists, including their technical methods, started in 1934 Camera Craft linked above , AA vs Mortensen. I don't have Beaumont Newhall's book but I believe he never reported it.
Compared to this any debate arising from Paul Strand's pictures 17 years earlier never gets a mention unless maybe you can make the case.
The figure of 37 subscribers is a estimate , see "Final years 1915-17" here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_Work#:~:text=Camera Work was a quarterly photographic journal published,purpose to establish photography as a fine art
Although Camera Work folded , Steiglitz later encouraged AA.

 

[removed account4]

I believe the main debate between the purists and the pictorialists, including their technical methods, started in 1934 Camera Craft linked above , AA vs Mortensen. I don't have Beaumont Newhall's book but I believe he never reported it.
Compared to this any debate arising from Paul Strand's pictures 17 years earlier never gets a mention unless maybe you can make the case.
The figure of 37 subscribers is a estimate , see "Final years 1915-17" here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_Work#:~:text=Camera Work was a quarterly photographic journal published,purpose to establish photography as a fine art
Although Camera Work folded , Steiglitz later encouraged AA.

I'm still amazed that you said only 37 people payed attention to camera work, and that Steiglitz had no influence on photography ( which might just be a misunderstanding on my part) ...

the debate between straight photography and pictorialists had been going on since the 1800s. if you look at the commentary surrounding people like Henry Peach Robinson and and others in in England and the States, it wasn't just Adams and Mortensen but it continued until then ( and now if you read any public fora like Photrio look at commentary in this thread ). photography has had a very interesting history to say the least and adopted by some people who also wanted to use it to be more than just the alleged mirror to reality. and if you look at sales of brass lenses on eBay selling for thousands of dollars, and people's current interest in processes like gum bichromate, cyanotype, plainotype, carbon printing, bromoil, crafting emulsions, mordancage, color photography and other "alternative to silver gelatin processes" and I would even say on can even put some types of digital photography in there too ... its not hard to see that pictorialism is live and well, and straight silver gelatin photographers, whether they are using a minox, Leica or speed graphic s are still doing their best like critics in the 1880s, and 1910, and 1917 and 1937 to delegitimize people that don't see the world of photography the same way they do. as a exposure and print without a lot of fluff.

 

[macfred]

Another interesting resource - Camera Work - browse all issues https://modjourn.org/journal/camera-work/

 

[Alan Johnson]

I'm still amazed that you said only 37 people payed attention to camera work, and that Steiglitz had no influence on photography ( which might just be a misunderstanding on my part) ...

the debate between straight photography and pictorialists had been going on since the 1800s. if you look at the commentary surrounding people like Henry Peach Robinson and and others in in England and the States, it wasn't just Adams and Mortensen but it continued until then ( and now if you read any public fora like Photrio look at commentary in this thread ). photography has had a very interesting history to say the least and adopted by some people who also wanted to use it to be more than just the alleged mirror to reality. and if you look at sales of brass lenses on eBay selling for thousands of dollars, and people's current interest in processes like gum bichromate, cyanotype, plainotype, carbon printing, bromoil, crafting emulsions, mordancage, color photography and other "alternative to silver gelatin processes" and I would even say on can even put some types of digital photography in there too ... its not hard to see that pictorialism is live and well, and straight silver gelatin photographers, whether they are using a minox, Leica or speed graphic s are still doing their best like critics in the 1880s, and 1910, and 1917 and 1937 to delegitimize people that don't see the world of photography the same way they do. as a exposure and print without a lot of fluff.

Yes John, misunderstanding, I did not say that, posts 373, 378, the link says 37 subscribers not readers, I just said Steiglitz had to close down Camera Work.
My bad, I should have made clear I was only interested in the AA &M technical methods for making negatives, posts 364, 371 .In that regard , AA was better but Mortensen merits a mention in history books IMO. However, history books are mainly written by arts people.

 

[removed account4]

Yes John, misunderstanding, I did not say that, posts 373, 378, the link says 37 subscribers not readers, I just said Steiglitz had to close down Camera Work.
My bad, I should have made clear I was only interested in the AA &M technical methods for making negatives, posts 364, 371 .In that regard , AA was better but Mortensen merits a mention in history books IMO. However, history books are mainly written by arts people.

sorry about that alan, was a bit confused by your post.
as they say .. history is written by the winners, (some say history is written by the liars )
..history is a strange thing, it is never unbias.
not sure but have you read about how mortensen made paper negatives with an enlarger ?
https://www.photrio.com/forum/resources/mortensens-paper-negative-process.444/

have fun!

 

[Arthurwg]

...and sure a bit of hypocrisy seeing Adams fully manipulated his images in other ways,.

Yes, for sure AA was a "pictorialist" himself, just off on a different tangent from the earlier ones. And yes, Strand was much more straight forward in his picture making. BTW, Strand's rather fuzzy early photo of chickens in a barnyard is the best picture of those birds ever made.

 

[Wayne]

Yes, for sure AA was a "pictorialist" himself, just off on a different tangent from the earlier ones. And yes, Strand was much more straight forward in his picture making. BTW, Strand's rather fuzzy early photo of chickens in a barnyard is the best picture of those birds ever made.

He really did capture the intelligence, nobility, mystery and romance of the chicken like few others have.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yep. Nuthin' more intelligent than a chicken. Anything that can run around and squawk with its head cut off doesn't seem to need brains anyway. But Strand sure timed and focussed the poses expertly there. Don't know if the chickens taste any better or not due to that.

 

[Rlibersky]

Liking one doesn't preclude you from liking the other. I was one of the many photographers, of a certain age, drawn to photography through the majesty Adams depicted. I'm still a fan. But, as my image making interests evolved, I have come to appreciate Mortenson more than I had before. I'd gladly hang both of them in my home.

+1, comparing the styles of the two photographers is a waste of time. It is like comparing Rembrandt and Picasso.

 

[Sirius Glass]

+1, comparing the styles of the two photographers is a waste of time. It is like comparing Rembrandt and Picasso.

That and arguing that photography is art versus photography is not art.

 

[pentaxuser]

He really did capture the intelligence, nobility, mystery and romance of the chicken like few others have.

 

[AnselMortensen]

I still like them both.
But I like the work of Brett Weston and Richard Garrod more.

 

[pentaxuser]

wayne, can you say what it was about this picture of chickens that captured the intelligence, nobility, mystery and romance of the chicken? It may be that you are expressing irony about the kind of thing that is often said of these sorts of picture and if so I should have picked this up and my question is redundant

Maybe Drew has picked this up better than I

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[DREW WILEY]

Oh gosh, is this old thread still alive, or just still in the casket for viewing way too long, until Mr. Mortuarysen is finally put to rest once for all? Chickens ... Don't get me started. I had a pantheistic neighbor down the street who claimed he could communicate with the spirits of his dead backyard chickens. He finally moved away. But some of Mortensen's pictures certainly seem haunted by the spirits of dead chickens, so I can understand why his imagery is far less popular hung on the walls of typical American homes than Ansel's. People like to sleep at night.

 

[redbandit]

Oh gosh, is this old thread still alive, or just still in the casket for viewing way too long, until Mr. Mortuarysen is finally put to rest once for all? Chickens ... Don't get me started. I had a pantheistic neighbor down the street who claimed he could communicate with the spirits of his dead backyard chickens. He finally moved away. But some of Mortensen's pictures certainly seem haunted by the spirits of dead chickens, so I can understand why his imagery is far less popular hung on the walls of typical American homes than Ansel's. People like to sleep at night.

It all comes down too the style... and the groups ansel was basically running as a member..

German style of mortensen did him in after ww1, and ww2 precluded any chance of a late life come back

 

[pentaxuser]

Well Drew, I think I have figured out how you feel about the qualities of the chickens photo in terms of what it tells us about chickens and it seems to be what I thought it was all along but I remain more puzzled about wayne's real feelings so hopefully he will reply

pentaxuser