Heres a dumb question about 2 adams

[Oren Grad]

There may be people out there who think the air quality along the Front Range is fine, who think we've managed the land wisely, who don't feel it's overdeveloped, who think stripmalls and suburban sprawl beautify the landscape, who don't value open space, vistas, native flora and fauna, or silence, who don't think the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons plant has led to any major problems. And there may be people who think these are merely the concerns of the privileged. But these people don't live in the same reality that I live in.

That's a straw man. There are plenty of people who care deeply about these things, but who come to different understandings about why they are and what to do about them than does Robert Adams.

Many who moved to the mountains in search of beauty and clean air, a better life connected to the pleasures of the land, are now paying the price of the lack of planning and stewardship that went into the areas they live.

You have just defined a self-selected few and (unintentionally, I'm sure) framed the issue as one of preservation of a private consumption benefit. As did Adams himself, in the very passage you quoted from Beauty in Photography:

"Our discouragement in the presence of beauty results, surely, from the way we have damaged the country, from what appears to be our inability now to stop, and from the fact that few of us can any longer hope to own a piece of undisturbed land".(emphasis added)

I don't think the love of unspoiled land is the province of rich people and alienated academics. If it is, then Ansel must be an elitist too.

In a global context, this most certainly is a concern of the privileged. You ducked the issue of Adams' anti-poor-immigrant prejudice - better to keep the Mexicans down below the border where they belong, than to allow for any tradeoff of the things he personally values against the possibility of a more prosperous future overall both for them and for us. His response has a nasty nativist edge - shut the door and keep out the grimy masses, lest they foul the lawn and spoil the view.

Are you criticising him for not breaking into the same calender and coffee table book ubiquity as Ansel?

No. If the problems he perceives are so central to his very being that he lives a life of pain, so critical to our society that we face looming catastrophe, there are plenty of life paths someone of his intelligence could have taken that would have placed him at the heart of environmental policy, whether as a professional or as an interested amateur. He chose not to pursue such a life; instead he makes photographs and writes stylish little essays, once in a while emitting an ill-tempered screed that parrots silly agitprop. I don't blame him for not going into the business, as it were; he followed his muse, and more power to him. But to make him out as some sort of environmentalist hero strikes me as fatuous.

Remember that this whole thread started with a question about the impact of photographers on environmental conservation. In that context, Robert Adams' (unintended) role has been to sustain the conceit that intense feeling and impassioned esthetic expression are a reasonable substitute for getting your hands dirty, really understanding the issues, and participating in the hard tradeoffs needed to find solutions that we can all live with.

Do you really think there's anything high-falutin' about his books or his pictures?

You bet I do. Not that I don't like some of his work; but in overall context, yes, I do.

[Paddy Quinn]

""....the people who actually labor in the trenches making public policy."

If only."

that would probably be consultants consulting other consultants. I've worked with many people who work in "policy" and I've rarely come across one who can actually explain what it is they really do.

There's more than a little truth to the saying; "Consulting - If you're not a part of the solution,there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem".

[tim atherton]

There may be people out there who think the air quality along the Front Range is fine, who think we've managed the land wisely, who don't feel it's overdeveloped, who think stripmalls and suburban sprawl beautify the landscape, who don't value open space, vistas, native flora and fauna, or silence, who don't think the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons plant has led to any major problems. And there may be people who think these are merely the concerns of the privileged. But these people don't live in the same reality that I live in.

"That's a straw man. There are plenty of people who care deeply about these things, but who come to different understandings about why they are and what to do about them than does Robert Adams. "

what would those be? What would yours be?

[paulr]

"You have just defined a self-selected few and (unintentionally, I'm sure) framed the issue as one of preservation of a private consumption benefit. As did Adams himself, in the very passage you quoted from Beauty in Photography:
"Our discouragement in the presence of beauty results, surely, from the way we have damaged the country, from what appears to be our inability now to stop, and from the fact that few of us can any longer hope to own a piece of undisturbed land".(emphasis added)"

I think Adams is recognizing that owning a piece of undisturbed land is a common desire, but now, because of the scarcity we've created, it IS a privilege limited to a very wealthy few."

"In a global context, this most certainly is a concern of the privileged."

Ok, sure, we Americans ARE privileged, by virtue of not suffering right now from famine, civil war, tsunami, or plague, among other things, to worry about comparatively lesser woes like the destruction of a landscape. I don't know what this line of thinking is supposed to accomplish. There will always be people with worse problems. That doesn't make it dishonorable or trivial to worry about the ones we have. Or are we supposed to feel bad about feelling bad?

"You ducked the issue of Adams' anti-poor-immigrant prejudice ..."

I think it's a low blow calling it that. He articluates a position that is widely held among ecologists, which is that certain regions of our country are already beyond the carrying capacity of their natural resources. When this is the case, allowing more people into the region is a bad idea for everyone, longterm, if there are economic benefits for anyone in the short term. Stemming mass imigration that is already against the law is an easy way to make a difference.

"I don't blame him for not going into the business, as it were; he followed his muse, and more power to him. But to make him out as some sort of environmentalist hero strikes me as fatuous."

That's your entry into the straw man category. Environmental hero? I never said that. I never even suggested he was more important to the environmental movement than Ansel. I did question how much difference any artist can make. Artistic hero? He's as close to one as I have, but that's a diferent story.

Of course I'm glad he followed his muse. I've always believed we serve the world best when employing our natural gifts rather than doing something else we perceive as important, but that could be done as well or better by other people. I'd be willing to bet Adams supports conservation causes with his spare time and money, and I also believe it would have been a waste if he'd become a greenpeace boat captain, or whatever, out of some sense of obligation. Other people are drawn to do that and are gifted at it; no one else could have made Adams' pictures.

I relate to Adams first because I think his pictures are remarkable, and second, because we share similar feelings about the land--and because he's been able to articulate those feelings, in words and pictures, better than I've been. I think that makes for a profound relationship between an artist and a viewer ... when the artist is able to say clearly what the viewer has only been able to sense.

"Robert Adams' (unintended) role has been to sustain the conceit that intense feeling and impassioned esthetic expression are a reasonable substitute for getting your hands dirty, really understanding the issues, and participating in the hard tradeoffs needed to find solutions that we can all live with."

Well, what he's done for me and for others that I know is deeper than that. he's helped us to get beyond bitterness, and to find an affirmative way to relate a damaged landscape. I think his work is about hope, not conceit. It's about finding an affection for life in times and places where it's not so easy to do.

As far as the work being high falutin', we'll just have to disagree. Personally I'm glad he says what he says as richly as he does, without talking down to anyone. There are plenty of people who share his concerns and who make simple rhetoric. They have their place too.

[Frank Petronio]

The problem I have with RA and his ilk is that they are, ultimately, enemies of labor, growth, and individualism. And I value those very human qualities above all the beauties of nature.

I admire miners, loggers, ranchers, large-scale farmers, and builders. I think the earth should be exploited and shaped to suit mankind. I think humans are the ultimate highest species. And I think that our economy needs to grow and we need to consume to sustain these very positive qualities.

Apparently we've been running out of resources and consuming so much that we should be into negative numbers by now, but yet inspite of the dire predictions somehow new resources keep being found and people (and markets) sort things out. And inspite of all the doom and gloom, we now have more people than every, living in more peace and prosperity, with higher literacy and potential, than in the combined history of mankind. Hardly the scenario predicted by so many ecologists in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

I'm all for preseriving eco-systems and natural wonders. And I think people are short-sighted to pollute unnecessarily and to do dumb things like make species extinct or to ship raw logs to Japan. I hate tourist traps and trailer parks, and I think we should prosecute the employers who hire illegal immigrants. But when it comes right down to it, people trump nature. And whether you agree with me or not is a moot point, because in the end, people will still take what they need, whether it mean drilling in the Artic Refuges or chopping down the Rainforests, regardless of what either Adams did.

Yvon Chouniard has it right. He advocates assigning financial values to ecological considerations. In other words, lets have fair market value for screwing up the environment. Make the logger who silts up the river pay not only for the timber, but for the reduced Salmon spawn. Stop having the Feds subsidize resource exploitation so that we ship raw materials overseas without jobs. Recognize that certain professions, like ranching, have screwed up the eco-system but there is no chance of restoring the land to it's pre-Columbian pristine state.

In other words, environmentalists have to start thinking like economists and working with people to create growth and jobs, not take them away.

Otherwise you can just continue to blame GW Bush for the hurricanes, like that is really smart and urbane...

[Kirk Gittings]

Frank, have you ever seen Blade Runner?

[paulr]

I don't see anything in Adams' writing (and certainly nothing in his pictures) that is anti-labor, anti-growth, or anti-individualism. I see a lot in the writing that's against unsustainable growth, development today at the expense of possibilities tomorrow, and the kind of individualism that doesn't equate freedom with responsibility. And I see in some of his pictures (early ones especially) the price for these shortsighted behaviors. Although that in itself isn't what's most interesting about them.

Being against overdevelopment doesn't mean being against houses. Being against clearcutting doesn't mean being against wood.

I like Yvon Chouinard's approach also. He's an example of an environmental hero, in my mind. But I don't see how his politics are so different from Adams's.

Neither shares your view that we are the "ultimate high species," whose desires override the needs of all others (though who can blame a creature for voting for its own kind). And neither agrees with exploiting resources at the expense of future generations.

[paulr]

"Frank, have you ever seen Blade Runner?"

or Mad Max, if you're less of an optimist.

[Kirk Gittings]

I started out my academic career as an economist before I found photography. While those guys are useful. They have no god but the bottom line.

[Paul Butzi]

Being against clearcutting doesn't mean being against wood.

Being against clearcutting IS being against always employing the most appropriate forest management practice.

Because you are aware that there are situations where the very best thing you can do is clearcut a stand, right?

So I suppose that being against clearcutting might not mean being against wood. But it probably does mean being against forests, or at least against best possible forest management practice.