man & nature # 69 ~ I really mean it
Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 09:01AM 
Red leaves and red sheriff SUV • click to embiggenI recently purchased a book, Ansel Adams ~ 400 PHOTOGRAPHS.
I wasn't looking to purchase this book but when I came across it in a bookstore this past Sunday, I was smack dab in the middle of my aforementioned new learning curve and I thought, what better reference to have about what a good BW print looks like than a collection of Ansel Adams' prints.
Well, not actual photographic prints, but like most books of Adams' pictures the reproduction values are very high indeed. So much so that, if one were to remove a page from the book, mat and frame it under glass, no one would think, even under nose-on-the-print scrutiny, that the picture was anything but a photographic print. Really, the repro quality (including the paper) is that good.
In addition to the book's value as a BW quality reference, I was also interested in the fact that Adams' pictures were arranged chronologically (early 1920s - 1960s) in order to create "an unprecedented survey of his development as an artist, of the themes and subjects that animate his work, and of the evolution of a style that is uniquely that of Ansel Adams (from the book jacket). My interest was piqued by the inclusion of what were described as "a number of masterly but little-known photographs".
Somewhat perversely, I am familiar with quite a number of Adams' little-known photographs because the only other book of Adams' pictures that I own is a little-known book in and of itself, Ansel Adams IN COLOR.
Ansel Adams in Color My purchase of that book was made out of pure curiosity. That curiosity was well rewarded with a book of absolutely wonderful pictures, many of which could be described (in the throes of self-aggrandizement) as quite Hobson/ku-ish in nature - unlike most of his iconic BW pictures, much of his color work is of less dramatic scenes and subjects. And considering the restraints / quality of the color materials the era, the pictures are remarkably subtle in both tone and color.
That said, Adams was very ambivalent about the very idea of making color pictures as is evidenced by, when writing about color, Adams remarked that “the Creator did not go to art school and natural color, while more gentle and subtle, seldom has what we call aesthetic resonance.”
YIKES!!!
Another photographer who thinks that he must play a role as God's Art Director in order to improve upon His choice of the color palette of the natural world.
YIKES, and DOUBLE YIKES!
However, this is no real surprise to me. Adams' BW pictures are, quite frankly, excellent examples of photo-manipulation that distorts reality writ large. Take as an example, all of those almost inky black skies that are in evidence in so many of his iconic grand-scale landscapes. They were achieved by the use of filters in a manner very similar to the use of graduated ND filters that are everywhere in evidence in the camera-club-y color landscape pictures that are so popular today.
Now, my intent with all of the above is not to denigrate Adams or his pictures. I do have a number of issues with his pictures but, undeniably, they are of great significance in so many ways - historically, culturally, technically (the Zone System), and, perhaps most impressively, the prints in and of themselves (independent of what they "say") as objects of absolutely exquisite beauty.
It's a bit of a mute point to speculate (but I won't let that stop me) on what Adams might have created with modern day color materials - analog and/or digital - at his disposal. His iconic BW pictures lead me to think that he might have had an affinity for this drivel from that pack-leading screaming colorist, Galen Rowell - a fierce proponent of that school of color pictures that Walkers Evens opined as having "...a bebop of electric blues, furious reds and poison greens”:
You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn't waste either
Although, it must be said as a counterpoint that Adams placed the pictures of that master of subtle color, Joel Meyerowitz, on his very short list of modern color photographers whose pictures he admired because they did not exhibit the “tornado of color” that Ansel Adams so feared was coming. Adams mentioned that Meyerowitz's landmark book, Cape Light was his favorite book of color photographs.
All of that said, let me leave with you this (all italic emphasis is mine) for your consideration:
When I look at photographs by Ansel Adams, I sometimes find myself wondering if Adams is celebrating the natural beauty of creation or simply the beauty preserved in our great national wilderness parks. Are his photographs about life or about zoning laws? Of course one might accuse me of asking dreary questions - but I don't think so. The act of cropping a photograph, which is a fundamental act of photography, is at heart a moral decision. In our landscapes, have we cropped out the tourists and the garbage in order to suggest 19th century America (which is to say, nostalgia), or have we cropped out what is truly irrelevant to our intentions as an artist? What photographers leave out is just as important as what they leave in. - John Rosenthal
PS - I'm curious as to where Adams' pictures fall on your scale of things photographic.
Reader Comments (5)
Nuggie-Ku.....Ansel was a pianist. It's most probable that he took the octave from music and simply, brilliantly transposed it to the grey scale as again a simple way of working at control of the DlogE curve. More importantly that music and its subtle beauties informed his "picturing"(gag, barf, belch)rather than the photographs others made. As we are in the ugly throes of the "baroque era" of image making there is little it seems left except imitation, outrageous manipulation and tiresome self indulgence. There was a description used for photographs a while ago that seems less valid for these days: He really meant that! As opposed to artful cre-re-creation.
Seems that the best of any work comes from outside the pale of technical machination and from some place deeper if that exists. No more Ku-Rap
I think it is unavoidable for anyone interested in landscape photography not to be influenced by Ansel Adams. As with most things photographic I am torn about Adams and his legacy. He was a great photo manipulator, but I don't like manipulation, yet I have not concluded where to draw the line. Photography is a manipulated representation of the real world, but at the same time a very accurate and real representation. Sometimes I just do like Adams and play the piano instead. At the piano I can forget all this intellectual stuff and just let my emotions and intuiton flow!
I love Adams' photographs, though I don't try to emulate him. Manipulated they are, for subtlety as well as drama--he manages both, as noted (though personally I'd prefer a bit more of the former). Having tramped around a fair portion of his Sierra Nevada, I have to say his work puts me there with much greater immediacy than any more "realistic" pictures I've seen, color or black and white. There are valid criticisms to be made, but some have more to do with what others have made of him than with what he did himself. As for Rosenthal, he doesn't seem to be among those who feel much more alive in the wilderness. Lucky for him!
Mark,
Usually I connect with your images, but I am sorry this one just is not giving me anything.
As for the sun star, how NPNish.
If you look through the color book there are MANY that he also did in B&W, certainly from the same spot and almost certainly at the same time (within minutes), or at least he tried hard to get the same lighting conditions. He thought highly enough of a lot of the B&W versions that many ended up in his portfolios or as other "iconic" images. The Color book is one I don't own, so can't give you page-for-page equivalents from BW books. I do recall the Mitten Buttes, the Salt Lake salt flats, and at least one of the aspen versions are also in BW books. Check it out.