Proposal: Photographers Who Are Not Adams Or Weston Month

[Nicolai Morrisson]

It seems not an online discussion thread about large format photography can go by without invoking Their Holinesses, Ansel Adams or Edward Weston. Great photographers, both, who made significant contributions and had significant influence. But they’re not saints or gods, and the inevitable, genuflecting references and predictable ensuing debates tend to make the conversations essentially the same. Different actors type out different parts of the same script on fora and recite them in darkrooms everywhere. Maybe it’s time to shut the feck up about them for a little while and open our eyes to other work.

Thus, I propose that we declare September Annual Photographers Who Are Not Adams Or Weston Month, where neither of their names are spoken, typed, or their work or accomplishments even referenced. Where we just give it a rest already. Where we attempt to actually think for ourselves. Where we go out and hunt down some forgotten greats from the last 150 years, and some shining new potential stars who might help us see things in a different flavour of light.

Then on the first of October we can go back to our mindless droning, forgetting that colour large format photography actually exists, and thinking there’s little in LF to learn but what Ed and Ansel "bestowed" upon us, and that if we could just see as they saw and print as they printed, all would be well. But please. Let us have September.

[poco]

As (extremely) limited as my interest in Adams and Weston may be, I don't see why other people should take that limitation into account in deciding what to post. Read what interests you, don't read what doesn't -- where's the problem?

[Chris Strobel]

Does that include Robert Adams and Brett,Cole, and Kim Weston

It seems not an online discussion thread about large format photography can go by without invoking Their Holinesses, Ansel Adams or Edward Weston. Great photographers, both, who made significant contributions and had significant influence. But they’re not saints or gods, and the inevitable, genuflecting references and predictable ensuing debates tend to make the conversations essentially the same. Different actors type out different parts of the same script on fora and recite them in darkrooms everywhere. Maybe it’s time to shut the feck up about them for a little while and open our eyes to other work.

Thus, I propose that we declare September Annual Photographers Who Are Not Adams Or Weston Month, where neither of their names are spoken, typed, or their work or accomplishments even referenced. Where we just give it a rest already. Where we attempt to actually think for ourselves. Where we go out and hunt down some forgotten greats from the last 150 years, and some shining new potential stars who might help us see things in a different flavour of light.

Then on the first of October we can go back to our mindless droning, forgetting that colour large format photography actually exists, and thinking there’s little in LF to learn but what Ed and Ansel "bestowed" upon us, and that if we could just see as they saw and print as they printed, all would be well. But please. Let us have September.

[Bill_1856]

Bravo! Absolutely no (....) nor (......) for the rest of this month.

[clay harmon]

Who?

[Lazybones]

Let's have Lazybones month.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

I am with poco, if it does not interest you then don't read it. Why should we care what you think of the Weston or Adams threads?

[Nicolai Morrisson]

I care because whenever either of them come up, the conversation tends to devolve into a reenactment of the same old scene from a very old play, and whatever discussion may have been going on gets hijacked away. To me, it tends to be an interestingness extinguisher. It's not a matter of just skipping the Ansel & Ed messages and reading the rest, it's that once they're mentioned, there's usually no "rest" left to read.

To turn the question around, why should I care what you think of the "hey let's take a break from these guys for a bit" thread? For the same reason I think you should care about this: because it affects the community as a whole. We don't have an unlimited amount of time to talk about things, so to some degree, online discussion is zero-sum: more time talking about Group f/64 means less time talking about other things, and there's a lot more out there that I think is worthy of attention.

When a good number of conversations end up turning into the same thing over and over again, it makes a community a less interesting place to be, and there's less motivation to participate in it.

[Mark Sawyer]

While Adams and Weston come up often here, this is a large format forum, and they are by far the two most influential lf photographers to date. The number of references doesn't seem out-of-proportion, and the comments certainly not always fawning.

I do sometimes wonder if each could be documented with the three miracles requisite to being declared an official "Saint"...

[Ole Tjugen]

IMO, the frequency with which those two names come up is way out of proportion.

Maybe we should try a period of František Drtikol and Josef Sudek?