If one has to spend some 2 months smelling paint then he tries to be there the optimal day to take notes
Why do you think Ansel Adams is better known than William Mortensen?
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If one has to spend some 2 months smelling paint then he tries to be there the optimal day to take notes
Look up Carleton E. Watkins.
I think Ansels photos are wonderful.
But also the old cliche of at the same time being over and underated applies. Which might, or might not simply translate into “misunderstood”.
Ansel had the fortune of being born in just the right time to be one of the first to fully take advantage of the new panchromatic emulsions, and also as with most artists, being born in the right place and in the right family and circumstances.
Luck of the draw is not cheating.
But he was a delusional romantic painter.
Ansel was his own greatest spokesperson and he again, was in a position and place to convince others of his import.
Ansel Adams was a master of many things but he was not first and foremost a “modern” in the twentieth century sense. More in the John Ruskian sense.
In my book not a bad thing.
And to answer your question, yes I have seen his prints on two occasions once on GL. Holtegaard near Copenhagen, another time in the Wilderness Society in DC. Both times I spend hours studying them.
But remember that Ansel was adamant about the print quality of his work. The books that are sanctioned by him or his estate, are of the highest possible quality.
He had to become somewhat of an expert in printing not only of wet prints, but also book print.
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Even better:Below the B/W version. I must say that it doesn't remind me AA at all...
One immediate objection would be: “wouldn’t that make any landscape artist a romantic painter”?
That would only betray lacking knowledge of art history though.
Breadth, repose and the “sublime” as in the romantic “pathetic fallacy” is not to a large extent part of landscapes and nature imagery before or after the late eighteenth through the nineteenth century.
The above exclusively pertains to a western tradition of course.
Chinese and Japanese painters encompassed some of those notions or perceptive modes centuries (if not millennia) before.
And after 1853 the influence of especially Japanese art is felt ever increasingly. So as such it’s possible that Ansel was influenced by that if not directly then indirectly.
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I never saw before a color photography of AA, very interesting.
Painting (of whatever period or style) is the main reference for any landscape photographer outside the photography itself, even he or she is not aware of it, No art can growth unconnected with current and past ways of expression. I find in myself an unstoppable tendency to do Casper-like landscapes, including a contemplating person backwards and so...
It is clear that AA had motivations connected with romatic movement but I don't see his photos as an extension of romatinc painting. Perhaps due to B/W, but I think he created his own style starting from what others think and did on the 19th century.
Painting (of whatever period or style) is the main reference for any landscape photographer outside the photography itself, even he or she is not aware of it, No art can growth unconnected with current and past ways of expression. I find in myself an unstoppable tendency to do Casper-like landscapes, including a contemplating person backwards and so...
It is clear that AA had motivations connected with romatic movement but I don't see his photos as an extension of romatinc painting. Perhaps due to B/W, but I think he created his own style starting from what others think and did on the 19th century.
How is that?I never saw before a color photography of AA, very interesting.
Painting (of whatever period or style) is the main reference for any landscape photographer outside the photography itself, even he or she is not aware of it, No art can growth unconnected with current and past ways of expression. I find in myself an unstoppable tendency to do Casper-like landscapes, including a contemplating person backwards and so...
It is clear that AA had motivations connected with romatic movement but I don't see his photos as an extension of romatinc painting. Perhaps due to B/W, but I think he created his own style starting from what others think and did on the 19th century.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing. I just have a bit of trouble seeing where he really differentiates himself.
Ansel did a lot of colour stuff. Look it up. Quite interesting and telling.
In the same way he came just in time for pancromatic, he stopped shooting really prolifically just when colour negative matured.
But who knows, there might be negatives waiting in some vault somewhere.
Allegedly he was preparing a book on colour before he died.
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In 1976 Adams appointed Little, Brown & Co as sole authorized publisher of his books and also a Trust to ensure the quality, eg Ansel Adams in Color, 1993,2009.
Below the B/W version. I must say that it doesn't remind me AA at all...
It reminds me that painters can with a stroke of a brush change illumination, so they cannot be compared with photographers.
A great darkroom artist like Ansel can do just about anything to a print.
That was one of his objections to colour, that he couldn’t do as much to it, without it looking strange.
A painter runs into their same problem with colour, without doing some kind of mechanical/general abstraction.
I disagree with you. The painterly style is dead. Ansel Adams was not painterly. The art world agreed long ago that painting is not photography and photography is not painting. In a sentence, you are just plain wrong.
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Helge - how many of Carleton Watkins masterworks have you seen? I've seen a lot of the real deal. The biggest collections are nearby. Our family also has hundreds of his commercial little stereo images - of little collector value, but it's how he made much of his income. In a few of his mammoth plate images, Watkins proved his title to be a predecessor of constructivist abstract art long before Sheeler. Brilliant work. But 99% of what he did was exactly what you'd deride as "romanticist" or "pictorial scenery" because that was what he was specifically sponsored to do by the railroad companies hoping for greater tourist traffic in the West, prior to automobile highways. My own babysitter as an infant was the first white woman ever in Yosemite when she was a little girl. I had a ranch near there, own all kinds of old tintypes and ambrotypes of the area, from before much of a park concept even existed, and know the difference in these various kinds of imagery very well.
And the notion that AA was the first person to take advantage of panchromatic plates in this manner, even in Yosemite itself, it utter nonsense. There's a dealer near here specializing in those kinds of period Yosemite photos (open only by appt now). Quite a few significant photographer were there between the time of blue-sensitive work like that of Watkins and Muybridge and AA. Fiske is a well known one. Then there's the infamous "Uncle Earle" incident, where the negatives of Yosemite by some moderately-talented commercial photographer were discovered in an attic, and the heir attempted to sell prints of those as early work of AA himself. The real AA foundations sued and stopped it.
Ansel would not be one of the photographers I personally classify as a truly great printer, but certainly competent enough to communicate his sensitivity to natural light eloquently. He never really understood color well, or printed itself, but did make enough interesting color images (sometime paid to do so by the film companies) that it warranted a nice little book. Likewise, Edward Weston. In fact, the largest source of AA's income came from stock he received in lieu of cash from the start-up of Polaroid, testing and promoting film for them. And yes, he clearly made an effort to understand how his images would come out in offset print version instead, in books or other print media, prior to modern scanning. He specially printed somewhat lower contrast for those particular applications; and many of those prints remain, but sell for relatively little due to their lack of snap in comparison to actual signed display prints.
Helge - you mention Western traditions, Oriental tradition, AA, etc etc. I've exhibited with all of em, and think I know the difference. Right beside significant modernist works from the far east, still in semi-traditional garb, famous NT abstract expressionists, famous second-generation Impressionists, AA, etc. There's simply way too much variety out there to force them into neat pigeonholes like critics trying to find any excuse for yet another over diatribe tend to do.
And the notion that AA was the first person to take advantage of panchromatic plates in this manner, even in Yosemite itself, it utter nonsense. There's a dealer near here specializing in those kinds of period Yosemite photos (open only by appt now). Quite a few significant photographer were there between the time of blue-sensitive work like that of Watkins and Muybridge and AA. Fiske is a well known one. Then there's the infamous "Uncle Earle" incident, where the negatives of Yosemite by some moderately-talented commercial photographer were discovered in an attic, and the heir attempted to sell prints of those as early work of AA himself. The real AA foundations sued and stopped it.
Ansel would not be one of the photographers I personally classify as a truly great printer, but certainly competent enough to communicate his sensitivity to natural light eloquently. He never really understood color well, or printed itself, but did make enough interesting color images (sometime paid to do so by the film companies) that it warranted a nice little book. Likewise, Edward Weston. In fact, the largest source of AA's income came from stock he received in lieu of cash from the start-up of Polaroid, testing and promoting film for them. And yes, he clearly made an effort to understand how his images would come out in offset print version instead, in books or other print media, prior to modern scanning. He specially printed somewhat lower contrast for those particular applications; and many of those prints remain, but sell for relatively little due to their lack of snap in comparison to actual signed display prints.
Helge - you mention Western traditions, Oriental tradition, AA, etc etc. I've exhibited with all of em, and think I know the difference. Right beside significant modernist works from the far east, still in semi-traditional garb, famous NT abstract expressionists, famous second-generation Impressionists, AA, etc. There's simply way too much variety out there to force them into neat pigeonholes like critics trying to find any excuse for yet another over diatribe tend to do.
Thanks to Alan for digging up the online copies of Camera Craft. One of the interesting things is the lack of actual debate or even conflict in the Camera Craft articles. Mortensen was basically printing chapters of his book without reference to F64 or any members name, while Adams and Willard Van Dyck responded in the Letters to the Editor section with what I would describe as defensiveness but without the rancor of Adam's later characterizations.
I wonder if the whole thing got started with Ansel's exposition on Portraiture on Page 114. It is an illuminating read.
In his own words- " I would state that a photographic portrait is a record of a head or figure composed and organized as a static thing; I photograph heads as I would photograph sculpture." (my italics). Perhaps this is why, when faced with the tragedy of the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent, he took a picture of a rock!
Also in his own words-
"The purely photographic aspect of portraiture might be integrated in the following phases:
1 . Static presentation of subject.
2. Composition based on a geometric analysis of the architecture of the head or form.
3. Intensity of textural presentation.
4. Complete focal depth.
5. Avoidance of retouching and manipulation of negative and print.
6. Simplicity of treatment and mounting."
I think that Mortensen's subsequent book chapter stung so badly that Ansel may have asked Willard to help him double down as a way of not admitting his lack of expertise in portraiture., which in his own words- "I do very little of it professionally."
Perhaps Willard pointed out that Ansel's Series XV triple convertible only closed down to F45 and suggested that they form a group called F64, explaining that no one will know what the F they are talking about!
The popularity of Mortensen's style at that time is attested to by the overwhelming profusion of similar compositions and subject matter found in the magazine. The frontispiece of the Sept. 1934 issue of the magazine is interesting as an example of Fred Archer's work which I have not heard Ansel criticized; perhaps he bit his tongue.
Now where is that satire happy face?
I wonder if the whole thing got started with Ansel's exposition on Portraiture on Page 114. It is an illuminating read.
In his own words- " I would state that a photographic portrait is a record of a head or figure composed and organized as a static thing; I photograph heads as I would photograph sculpture." (my italics). Perhaps this is why, when faced with the tragedy of the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent, he took a picture of a rock!
Also in his own words-
"The purely photographic aspect of portraiture might be integrated in the following phases:
1 . Static presentation of subject.
2. Composition based on a geometric analysis of the architecture of the head or form.
3. Intensity of textural presentation.
4. Complete focal depth.
5. Avoidance of retouching and manipulation of negative and print.
6. Simplicity of treatment and mounting."
I think that Mortensen's subsequent book chapter stung so badly that Ansel may have asked Willard to help him double down as a way of not admitting his lack of expertise in portraiture., which in his own words- "I do very little of it professionally."
Perhaps Willard pointed out that Ansel's Series XV triple convertible only closed down to F45 and suggested that they form a group called F64, explaining that no one will know what the F they are talking about!
The popularity of Mortensen's style at that time is attested to by the overwhelming profusion of similar compositions and subject matter found in the magazine. The frontispiece of the Sept. 1934 issue of the magazine is interesting as an example of Fred Archer's work which I have not heard Ansel criticized; perhaps he bit his tongue.
Now where is that satire happy face?
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Huh? AA took many pictures of actual Manzanar internment daily events, including people. And Adams did stunning classic studio portraits, if a bit too crisp for the "fuzzie wuzzies" like Mortensen. I'm sure they had even nastier terms for their respective styles. But because AA was on official govt assignment when at Manzanar, and was monitored, he couldn't bag just anything with a camera he might have liked. Dorothea Lange took more controversial ones on the sly, but that led to her restriction afterwards. Most revealing of all were the ones taken by an internee himself, Toyo Miyatake, with a homemade box camera and smuggled in film. The military camp director was sympathetic to him and deliberately turned a blind eye to his photo activities. After the closure of these camps, my mother would drive me down from the mountains so we could help a Japanese family harvest their little orchards, starting up again after losing everything. That's what it was all really about - a scheme by which the big politically-connected fruit packing companies could outright steal the successful orchards of immigrant families. But many of them became successful again after many more years of hard dedicated effort.
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did he ? Sorry to put you on the spot like this DREW, but can you link to some of AA's studio portraits ?
I have never seen any of his studio portraits, just the ones in some of his published books like "the negative". I wouldn't suggest they were stunning, but what do I know.
In the 30s 40s and 50s studio portraiture, at least the portraits done on "Main Street USA" and those found lens brochures like Wollensak,
were not "f64" type portraits but more like the work of Garo or Karsh...rembrant style lighting &c, which is more lie the style of Mortensen, than the f64 aesthetic.
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My garsh. Armchair experts without a clue. One of the most famous and controversial (and now highly collectable) portraits of that whole era was that of Carolyn Anspacher (I might have misspelled it a bit), "Karsh" prior to Karsh. It's been published in books many times, and has had considerable museum exposure. Could cite other famous examples. The only President in US history who didn't sit for an official painting had a 20X24 Polaroid taken by AA instead. This kind of work was part of his commercial venue. He no doubt did hundreds of portraits over the years, a few of them as classic as his best landscape work. But if all you've personally been exposed to is that relatively narrow selection of his best-selling 8 to 12 Sierra images, which have been reproduced over and over and over again, of course, you'll have a skewed perspective of what he did. There are a few portraits even in his book, Examples, which amounts to some of what he personally thought were his most iconic shots.
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Only 1 left. I’ll let you have it... I’m on a “spending diet” for a while.
Ansel Adams: 50 years of Portraits https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006WZR7S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_19A3BATQ36ETZJJYVZRX
and this:
https://www.loc.gov/collections/ansel-adams-manzanar/about-this-collection/
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When did I profess to be an armchair expert? I worked with a Main Street USA portrait photographer as her assistant, retouches some of her negatives did all her processing and printing. she was trained in the 20/30s and her full 5x7 work of dignataries politicos, &c formal work/ character work were karshesque like most people trained in that day. Brochures from ilex, b/l wollensak are readily available on cameraeccentric.com and present the types of portrait work done by professionals. Are you suggesting working professionals from that era and trade catalogs are presenting an uninformed view of the time ? Sorry I didn’t know any of his studio portraits. I only knew the extremely painful to look at “environmental” work in the negative. I have never really been someone who cares about follows, or is a “fanboy” of Adams the people posturing in the mid 1900s to be honest. Kind is all boring to me...
It’s too bad you have to resort to name calling and insults to make your points...
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Thanks for the book link I’ll have to check that out.. lots of expenses these days so I might have to pass too..
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Unfortunately, the new Manzanar Visitor Center and Museum wasn't open when I drove past it this past summer due to virus restrictions, and wouldn't have hung around anyway if it was due to terrible forest fire smoke. And the year before it was even finished yet. The Miyatake family has its own little venue, in LA I think, including the original camera. Nearby in Big Pine is still the house of Mary Austin, the author of Land of Little Rain, as well as my mother's uncle's little Victorian church built when he was a circuit preacher in frontier boomtowns. I have a collection of very early photos showing that town first under construction, replete with oxen pulling logs behind them with chains as a snowplow, and women in hoop skirts and staves climbing Palisade Glacier up above there, before AA was ever even born. But yes, you skeptics might indeed be cured of some of your unwarranted stereotypes if you perused those links Brian just posted. There are plenty more sources of such evidence if you bothered to do some serious homework.
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jnantz - well, guess I was being a bit acerbic. Sorry. Photographers of the era ran in their own career cliques, with various commercial and ideological rivalries. Ansel was the subject of a certain amount of contempt, but I suspect some of it was due to jealousy. Others didn't like the fact he hobnobbed with wealthy people when so much of the country was suffering. One of his early assistants worked for both camps of opinion - both Ansel and Dorothea Lange; that must have been "interesting". I've seen a lot of Hurrell's 5x7 originals, whether 5x7 tricolor camera separation negs or 5x7 Kodachromes of Hollywood celebrities - amazing color, still unfaded. But he preferred 11X14 for studio work - easier to retouch.
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Interesting Brian and Drew but before it is concluded that AA was no 1 for both landscapes and portraits what do you think of Mortensen's method of producing a 7D negative for portraits by underexposing and developing to gamma infinity since this was his main technical contribution.?
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Well, in terms of common-sense sensitometry, I think Mortensen would need worms in his brain to promote that kind of thinking as alleged science. But film emulsion quality control was quite different back then, so it might be related to something coincidental. And in fact, I have used that strategy myself with modern films in relation to certain portraits which I "snatch" printed, back when certain silver-rich graded papers were still around suitable for that (not to be confused with lith printing). And if Mortensen had been remembered for his portrait work, instead of us all being distracted by his weird Freudian antics, I think his reputation would have held up better today. Some of it reminds me of Steichen's own impressive "fuzzy wuzzy" days.
I'm just chiming in on this interesting and controversial thread, Alan. I never said that AA was no. 1 in anything, either landscape or portraiture. That would misrepresent my own opinion. But he was a heavy hitter in both. That cannot be denied. And his Zone System, which itself is now way back in the rear view mirror as far as I'm concerned, did help a great many students. Mortensen is more like a frilled dinosaur fossil; interesting, but ....
I'm just chiming in on this interesting and controversial thread, Alan. I never said that AA was no. 1 in anything, either landscape or portraiture. That would misrepresent my own opinion. But he was a heavy hitter in both. That cannot be denied. And his Zone System, which itself is now way back in the rear view mirror as far as I'm concerned, did help a great many students. Mortensen is more like a frilled dinosaur fossil; interesting, but ....
I don’t think anyone says AA was known for excellence in portraits... only saying that he also did them and some”commercial” photography too.
I’ll bet that Annie Leibovitz could have got Jimmy out of his clothes for a portrait... or at least get him to loosen the tie!
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Well, it had to be done in a single shutter click, and it does seem a bit stiff to me; but it's what Jimmy wanted. Of course, the Carter's have sat for numerous portrait photographers and painters; but there can be only one "official portrait" relative to the entire series of every President and Vice President. Jimmy also wanted to be identified as sympathetic with the Enviro movement and Natl Parks etc, so a link to AA would have been logical.
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I am sure William Coupon would have taken a great photograph too, but clothes would have been on, and no bathtub of peanuts.
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