Ansel Adams' Clearing Winter Storm

[John Kasaian]

How many peppers did Weston photograph? Hint, it was well more than 30. That's only one really good photograph considering all the years he spend photographing veggies. Some of the others make you scratch your head and wonder what he was thinking.

The point I'm trying to make with tongue firmly in cheek, is that it's silly to try to guage an artist like this. Mozart composed effortlessly and prolifically. Beethoven had to really work for it. Brahms controlled how people like us discussed his legacy by burning a large quantity of his work (mostly early works) so we wouldn't know how many peppers he photographed before he created a masterpiece. Yet each composer created masterpieces and added to the collective works of music, each in their own way.

Photography is no different.

Bruce, all this talk of peppers is making me hungry!

[Drew Wiley]

I've seen piles of so-so AA prints, many of them merely adequate commercial shots printed low-contrast for offset reproduction, and even piles of EW ones which he probably planned to throw away in the first place, then somebody inherited. I've got piles of my own dud work prints, which I keep on hand only so I can reference how to print those particular images better the next session, before I finally shred them up into the recycle container. Even Babe Ruth struck out more times than he hit a home run. What counts it not only the ability to make excellent prints, but how to recognize them when you do, then hopefully toss the rest.
But some photographers are apparently hoarders.

[chassis]

Clearing Winter Storm is the first photograph that caused my jaw to drop, around 20 years ago.

[Leszek Vogt]

Wow, I realize that I live in a different universe (cocoon if you will). Never seen the Trailer kids shot (thanks for that, Tim) and I see the point clearly. I always thought that the winter clearing shot had to do with El Capitan (alone) in the fog and clouds clearing....and I saw his work in Carmel and at Yos. Still learning, I suppose.

Les