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

[RalphLambrecht]

Timing. The type of work William Mortensen was doing had run its course in the public eye and it was time for photography to continue on. AA was at the right place at the right time, and had the talent and intelligence to be a unifying figure and take advantage of it...and take photography in a new direction. AA's vision has run its course, what is pure in today's photographic world? But no need to toss him in the rubbish heap, nor William Mortensen. Both are building blocks of today's newest work...whatever that may be.

AA was a supreme darkroom worker and understood the technical aspects of photography better than anybody at this time; Wiliam Mortesen, on the other hand, was a true photographic artist. Everybody admires the skills of the former, but believes to really have the skills of the latter

 

[Vaughn]

I think both terms (techie artists) apply to both photographers, and both were teachers and communicators, which is why we still know their names, IMO.

Throwing the label 'true' in front of 'artist' is entering into dangerous territory.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Wiliam Mortesen was a pictorialist and posed many imaginary photographs which as the 20th century faded from the public's interest. Ansel Adams photographed things that existed, mostly in nature, and then made them more dramatic. For most 20th century people, realistic photographs were more interesting than fantasies.

 

[alanrockwood]

The first time I saw Ansel Adams' photos, which were in a picture book on someone's coffee table, I fell in love with them. I had not heard of AA before that day, so reputation had nothing to do with my reaction.

On the other hand, I don't like Mortensen's photos.

I suspect that myriad of other people felt the same way. If so then this could be at the root of why Adams is more popular, which in turn could affect why Adams in better known.

 

[Chuck_P]

I don't have anything to say really negative about Mortensen, perhaps except that nothing he did held my attention for more than a couple of seconds......there's nothing about his work that appeals to me, it's as simple as that. AA, well, I find myself captivated by what he has laid down on a sheet of photographic paper with his photography. I think most people who enjoy his photography have some similar type of reaction to his images. AA himself, imo, would say that the realistic aspect of his photography is because, as he wrote in The Negative, of the "optical-image accuracy"; their values are definitely departures from reality." I agree with Sirius that this is the "more dramatic" aspect that appeals to most people.

 

[Helge]

Will somebody shown me a genuinely good photo from Mortensen?
What I’ve seen is at best mildly charming kitsch.

 

[Chan Tran]

I don't know about Mortesen but I think Adams was very good at promoting his work.

 

[faberryman]

Apparently people who buy calendars and coffee mugs prefer dramatic landscape to allegory.

 

[Chuck_P]

Apparently people who buy calendars and coffee mugs prefer dramatic landscape to allegory.

People prefer what that they prefer, they generally know what they like and why they like it........whether it be coffee mugs and calendars or photographs to hang on the wall.

 

[faberryman]

People prefer what that they prefer, they generally know what they like and why they like it........whether it be coffee mugs and calendars or photographs to hang on the wall.

Hard to argue with that. The caveat is I am not sure people always know why they like what they like. Sometimes I have a hard time articulating why I like something..

 

[Vaughn]

Will somebody shown me a genuinely good photo from Mortensen?
What I’ve seen is at best mildly charming kitsch.

Human Relations 1932 ain't bad...

 

[Sirius Glass]

The first time I saw Ansel Adams' photos, which were in a picture book on someone's coffee table, I fell in love with them. I had not heard of AA before that day, so reputation had nothing to do with my reaction.

On the other hand, I don't like Mortensen's photos.

I suspect that myriad of other people felt the same way. If so then this could be at the root of why Adams is more popular, which in turn could affect why Adams in better known.

I agree. I have not seen a Mortensen photograph that I liked. I have not taken any time to look at Mortensen's exposure or darkroom methods.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I don't know about Mortesen but I think Adams was very good at promoting his work.

Ansel Adams engaged in a suscessful one man crusade against Mortensen and his work.

 

[Vaughn]

Ansel Adams engaged in a suscessful one man crusade against Mortensen and his work.

And Mortensen won the battle of wits, but lost the war.

 

[Helge]

Ansel Adams engaged in a suscessful one man crusade against Mortensen and his work.

Not even being an AA proselytizer, I think he was absolutely right.
After having gone to my library, that I found out has quite a few of Mortensens books, and once again taking a good long hard look at his work, I’ll declare it generally absolutely horrible.

There is hundreds and hundreds of photographers from those decades that are far more deserving of recognition and getting rediscovered.

That a discussion even went on between AA and WM is possibly due to the fact that AA was, while not with a foot in his mouth, not super eloquent and precise.

 

[Carterofmars]

The original debates between Adams and Mortensen are available for reading over several editions of Camera Craft. Contrary to what is often written about some kind of epic battle they appear quite friendly, probably enabling both to build a following.
https://archive.org/search.php?query=camera+craft&page=1
Unfortunately for Mortensen, pictorialism went out of fashion, all over the world, not just in America.
He did not leave much of a technical legacy, only developing to gamma infinity for the purpose of expanding the range of skin tones in portraiture which has few followers. I have "Mortensen on the Negative".
Adams straight landscapes remain highly popular and his technical legacy extensive for those enthusiastic enough to follow his procedures.

Thanks for that Camera Craft archive!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Gotta highly disagree with Ralph. There were far more sophisticated darkroom workers than Ansel even in his own neighborhood. Just think of what dye transfer and color carbon and carbon printers routinely had to to go through technically in those days to obtain high quality images. For really big prints, Ansel had to resort to commercial labs far better skilled and equipped than he.

He knew what he wanted, and how to get from A to B - but understanding the technical aspects of the craft better than others?
That's gotta be one of the more ridiculous statements I've ever read on this forum. Just look at side by side Ansel prints in any significant degree of enlargement compared to those from Bradford Washburn, for example, around the same time, at his comparably mature phase, and the comment becomes laughable.

If he had other reasons for disliking Mortensen, so be it.

 

[bluechromis]

Mortenson was up against Group f/64. A group made up of heavy hitters. Very much like an NHL all star team playing in the Olympics.
Being firmly in the AA camp, after reading the exchanges between AA and M, I sided with the underdog, M. Who are they to say we are photography, and you aren't?? M's and AA's work is so different, you can't compare them.

Not all the members of the Group f/64 were not heavy hitters to begin with. It has always been difficult to make a living selling art photos. But f/64 group started up in extremely tough economic times in the depression. Apart from Weston, many young members of the group were lesser known. Some may have been close to being starving artists or having to rely on a different day job. They were desperate to get attention, to make a name for themselves and to sell their work. How were they to break into a market crowded with well established photographers?

One way of looking at what they did is as a marketing campaign. They created a distinct brand for themselves which raised their profile and eventually curried favor with gallery owners and museum curators. Marketing efforts are meant to add luster one's brand and diminish the competitors' brands. In this, the members of f/64 school succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

I am not saying the f/64 group members were solely motivated to seek lucre. In their minds they were principled. But the original impetus to create the group was not just to promulgate a new aesthetic philosophy, to nail manifestos on doors for the heck of it. The goal was to create an artistic identity, in part, as a means to the end of advancing their careers and selling photos. I don't think it is unfair to say that the motivation of the f/64 was at least partly self-promotion. Ansel Adams was a very good self-promotor his entire career. Until late in his career he still had to do commercial work to make a living. He had every reason to want to sell as much of his art photography at the highest possible prices so he could cut back on the commercial work. Adams wrote letters to photo magazines and spoke at photo clubs meeting where he took every opportunity to denounce Pictorialism and promote Straight Photography. For a time, he was also the director of a photography school which gave him influence. One reason Adams and his clique overshadowed Mortensen and his school is that they were better marketers.

Yes, the artistic merit of their work did contribute to their fame. But photographers outside the f/64 school including all the Pictorialists, not just Mortensen, also did work of great merit. The current drastic disparity between the recognition given to members of the f/64 school and the recognition given to, and even the awareness of, the Pictorialists cannot be attributed to the artistic superiority of the f/64 school alone.

 

[Hassasin]

Mortensen's work brings May Ray to mind, or clowning of a life that surrounded them. Ansel's work brings to mind technical glow of his teachings, honest belief in trees, leaves, and waterfalls, supporting PR campaigns, and publications hardly any aspiring photographer ever missed.

As such, the latter wound up in everybody's face, mostly for noble reasons, but also on wall calendars. The former did too, provided you learned to appreciate his twists of nature ... and many did not.

All the same, AA's work starts off quick in popularity contest, then fades away once bullshit related to technical perfection, visualisation, all the summersaults of different developments have you end up sweating your way in the darkroom anyways, to get what you want, despite of everything else you procrastinated over. So, in a span of weeks or years, one goes from a WOW to a WHY,

Mortensen's work was often a meh at the start, but tends to grow in appreciation as time goes by, especially when one develops own understanding of composition, ways of compiling a scene into a powerful image (by whatever methods).

Both have their well deserved place in history of photography as an art, as well as a technical challenge. No shame in appreciating both at he same time, yet no way to compare them side by side without admitting they were indeed vastly too different.

 

[ruilourosa]

AA White RollsRoyce...

 

[Helge]

Mortensen's work brings May Ray to mind, or clowning of a life that surrounded them. Ansel's work brings to mind technical glow of his teachings, honest belief in trees, leaves, and waterfalls, supporting PR campaigns, and publications hardly any aspiring photographer ever missed.

As such, the latter wound up in everybody's face, mostly for noble reasons, but also on wall calendars. The former did too, provided you learned to appreciate his twists of nature ... and many did not.

All the same, AA's work starts off quick in popularity contest, then fades away once bullshit related to technical perfection, visualisation, all the summersaults of different developments have you end up sweating your way in the darkroom anyways, to get what you want, despite of everything else you procrastinated over. So, in a span of weeks or years, one goes from a WOW to a WHY,

Mortensen's work was often a meh at the start, but tends to grow in appreciation as time goes by, especially when one develops own understanding of composition, ways of compiling a scene into a powerful image (by whatever methods).

Both have their well deserved place in history of photography as an art, as well as a technical challenge. No shame in appreciating both at he same time, yet no way to compare them side by side without admitting they were indeed vastly too different.

Don’t compare him to Man Ray.
On a good day he was Man Ray from Wish.com.

I’m still looking for an example of an actual good Mortensen photo.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Don’t compare him to Man Ray.
On a good day he was Man Ray from Wish.com.

I’m still looking for an example of an actual good Mortensen photo.

And you will will be very hard pressed to find one. I have better photographs in my darkroom trash can.

 

[DREW WILEY]

All the f/64 folks were already well-known photographers; and even trying to make a living on art photography without public grants was a dicey proposal. That's why Edward Weston had his portrait studio, and Ansel his commercial photo business etc.
Capitalizing on artistic ego is a different story.

I have an old Encyclopedia Brittanica volume from that era with a rabid f/64 manifesto by EW in it. All posturing. I wonder how much of it he believed himself. Besides, much of his own best work was more related to the anathematized "Pictorial" school
he was condemning. Doubt all that noise made him a penny richer.

Mortensen was all over the map, at times a fine Pictorialist himself; at other times trying just too hard to make artsified psychopathic content. A poor excuse for a Surrealist, if that is what he had in mind. But that kind of over the top thing has always occurred. My two cents worth. I just don't have much interest in him.

 

[GregY]

All the f/64 folks were already well-known photographers; and even trying to make a living on art photography without public grants was a dicey proposal. That's why Edward Weston had his portrait studio, and Ansel his commercial photo business etc.
Capitalizing on artistic ego is a different story.

I have an old Encyclopedia Brittanica volume from that era with a rabid f/64 manifesto by EW in it. All posturing. I wonder how much of it he believed himself. Besides, much of his own best work was more related to the anathematized "Pictorial" school
he was condemning. Doubt all that noise made him a penny richer.

Mortensen was all over the map, at times a fine Pictorialist himself; at other times trying just too hard to make artsified psychopathic content. A poor excuse for a Surrealist, if that is what he had in mind. But that kind of over the top thing has always occurred. My two cents worth. I just don't have much interest in him.

Drew, I have to say i agree with you entirely. It seems to be de rigeur to belittle the work of Ansel Adams. He was talented and successful and made some iconic images as well as thousand of fine ones. You can't downplay his work for the environmental movement. His work was meaningful for more than just photographers.
For those who climb mountains or just admire them from a distance, Ansel Adams work is right up there with Vittorio Sella and Bradford Washburn as a mountain photographer.

 

[Sirius Glass]

...

Mortensen was all over the map, at times a fine Pictorialist himself; at other times trying just too hard to make artsified psychopathic content. A poor excuse for a Surrealist, if that is what he had in mind. But that kind of over the top thing has always occurred. My two cents worth. I just don't have much interest in him.

A contradiction of terms