Heres a dumb question about 2 adams

[John_4185]

Over your carreer you will find that snickering such as that is usually a sign of fear as well as disrespect, and quite unhealthy. You might benefit by taking a step back and quietly take in what you need and put the rest away; the later is still in your recollection if you should need it later. Get your post-graduate work behind you, then run over the snickerers like a steamroller.

I've a lot to say about criticism but will reserve it for a separate thread, possibly some time when I am on vacation and have time.

May I ask what school you attend?

[Paul Kierstead]

Art is starting to bug me...what to do...what to do...

Hmmm... from what you say, it is the art critics/analysts that are starting to bug you, not the art. You have to seperate the two, and sometimes even the artists, who are not always the most redeeming examples of human behaviour and can sour the art if you are not careful.

I am sure many of those people cannot enjoy a popcorn movie, either.

As an aside, photographers can sometimes be overtaken by aspects of the photograph which only photographers could love. Actually, a good amount of the work posted in photography forums (where posting pics are the norm) are really photographs a photographer could love. People will swoon over the sharpness, the color, the ability to get so much dynamic range. The will be awed by the technical prowness, but show the same picture to a non-photographer and you will get 'nice picture'. Now Ansel is loved by far more then just photographers, but photographers tend to have a little extra love because of his technical prowness. You hear photogs quote/cite/honor Ansel Adams a helluva lot more then HCB, but I think many non-photogs would say HCB's shots have a lot more impact. They both have their place, I am just saying photographers are skewed. Similarly the 'art crowd' (vrs. those of us who simply appreciate it) tend to be wildly skewed as well.

[tim atherton]

"The reason I asked that was because as a photography major at an art
school, there is a lot of robert adamsy stuff held in high regard and
ansel adams stuff is kind of snickered at...which is beginning to bug me
as Im starting to see things like New Topographics being at best
interesting projects that do no measurable good to the cause theyre about,
and at worst just some complaining in the form of a photograph. Art is
starting to bug me...what to do...what to do..."

in the end result photography really never changed anything (or very little). It's not really about "doing good for a cause". If you expect it to you'll always be disappointed.

(though there is an element of truth to Paul's quote about poetry - which I can't remember right now...)

[dan_6130]

Maybe 'snickering' was a poor chioice of a word. I just find it kind of ironic so many photographs which are considered succesful dont really affect anything in the end to be pragmatic about it. Even though I dont really look at Ansel Adams stuff, im starting to realize the pretty amazing affect they had in doing what so many of the social landscape photographers set out to do and never really went anywhere beyond gallery walls. It seems that the idea of photography as a tool for change or good is pretty overrated, but on the othe hand I guess im being too hard on it. I really do like the Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Joel Sternfeld, Joe Deal, etc. stuff btw, and its the kinda stuff I look at most frequently, im just struggling with its place. So much of it seems like the landscape or issue serves only to be a part of an interesting photo project...whats more exploitative than that?

Paul- I dont mind art criticism, I think there could be more of it actually.
JJ- I go to Massachusetts College of Art, which i think is fantastic-

[William Mortensen]

"as a photography major at an art school, there is a lot of robert adamsy stuff held in high regard..."

Yes, Robert Adams' (and Emmitt Gowin's more overt) commentary-through-landscape-photography seems to be getting some appreciation, which I think it deserves. But I think it is subtlely unrelated to the New Topographics, which was more art-concerned, excuse me, Art-concerned, than landscape concerned.

I've been trying to think what the earlier parallels to Adams' and Gowin's works might be...

[Paul Butzi]

in the end result photography really never changed anything (or very little).

Shhhh! Don't tell Lewis Hine!

And, alas, it's too late for you to tell Eddie Adams, who had his photographs change things significantly in ways he was not particularly comfortable with.

[Kirk Gittings]

Dan,

Finish what you started, a formal education is always useful, but you don't know where it will take you. One of my best friends has an MFA but ended up a successful lawyer who has an amazing photo collection and gallery. My oldest kids both have bio chemistry degrees but are now a web designer and a film editor.

[Paul Kierstead]

Paul- I dont mind art criticism, I think there could be more of it actually.

Ah, actually I said critic, not criticism. I don't mind art criticism, but a goodly number of the critics need bonked over the head. A fair number of them seem to busy being self-important instead of actually looking at the art they are so anxious to put in a little box.

[paulr]

"Paulr - great, will look forward to hearing your thoughts. If you're short on time, "20th" is where most of the action is.."

i just finished rereading both chapters. i see nothing smacking of elitism, academic alienation, the desire to "cram us all into dense urban ghettos in order to preserve the wilderness," etc. etc. .... it's just not there. Not a hint of it. There's even less in his photographs that could be connected to these ideas or values. I really don't know where this conception of Adams comes from, except maybe from people taken at face value second hand remarks about his work.

A few quotes that I feel are representative:

"Art never, of course, explains or proves meaning--the picture is only a record of the artist's witness to it. He or she can, however, be a convincing witness."

"One does not for for long wrestle a view camera in the wind and heat and cold just to illustrate a philosophy. the thing that keeps you scrambling over the rocks, risking snakes, and swatting at the flies is the VIEW. It is only your enjoyment and commitment to what you see, not to what you rationally understand, that balances the otherwise absurd investment of labor."

"Though not as emotionally absolute as the loss of a person, the loss of one's home is so serious, I think, intertwined as it is with the rest of life, that it cannot be borne without learning, somehow, eventually, undoubtedly imperfectly, a faith. That is why we have to begin to conquer our bitterness over the loss of the West."

"My hopes are for the amelioration of problems--a more conservative pattern of land use, a reduction of air polution, a more prudent consumption of water, a lessening of animal abuse, a more respectful architecture. When I think about the possibility, however, of a landscape enriched by specific places to which we have responded imaginatively and with defference, I find myself thinking that we might be permitted to call it improved."

[paulr]

"You must not live in the West. Or, if you do you must spend your time in the city."

The point is that photographers working in the Ansel tradition depict the West exclusively through views that are exceptions, not the rule. The American West is over a million square miles. Places like Yosemite valley make up an infinitessimal portion of it. And Views like Ansel's make up only a tiny proportion of the views to be had in Yosemite. The hordes of tourists, the parking lots, the port-o-lets, the gift shops, the endless caravans of Winebagos, are not considered.

The result is a created myth, of vast, untouched, unspoiled land. It says nothing of the West in which people actually spend most of their lives, where they live, work, and travel.

If it inspires people to action, it inspires them to care more about these exceptional places, not about the vast tracts of space that we've already damaged beyond repair, and the almost as vast tracts that we're in the process of destroying. We can live in Las Vegas, depleting the water table, but feel that all is well because "Clearing Winter Storm" looks so transcendant on the wall.

This isn't a dig against Ansel's work. Just an observation that as inspiring as it may be, it does nothing to help us face in any way what we've done, or what we might do, with the rest of the West. The work IS a fiction, in some fundamental ways. Fiction can a profound art form, but it can also be something we use to distract ourselves from our real problems.