Don't forget that he mentioned he thought some of his photographs would look better in color..
I think everyone can agree he wanted the best images possible in his mind, and whatever process it would take to achieve, he'd try it out. No limitations.
Don't forget that he mentioned he thought some of his photographs would look better in color..
I think everyone can agree he wanted the best images possible in his mind, and whatever process it would take to achieve, he'd try it out. No limitations.
Speed Graphic 4x5 for LF, DIY wet / dry plate getup for ultra LF, Rolleiflex for MF, a bunch of others for 35mm.
Everyone really should find a copy of the FilmAmerica biography of him made in 1980. It really allowed him to express his ideals in his own words, and photographers in particular would gain much from it. There is no need to speculate on some of these issues--he spoke about them in that show in ways he did not write about. I think only those who conversed with him in workshops or privately would be able to better the insight one might gain.
A couple of points come to mind from that show and other sources:
1. He indeed did intend his negatives to be reinterpreted as time went on. He specifically said so, even to the extent of allowing students, under careful supervision to make prints from his negatives. He definitely intended them to use emerging technologies in those interpretations. Over and over, he described the negative as a score and a print as the performance of that score, and clearly he said that in the context that the performer was not necessarily the composer.
2. If you look at his equipment, he was not a traditionalist. He used what worked--sometimes it was old but often it was new. There is a picture of him making a portrait in the work he did for the University of California in the 1965 and 1966 (which was republished a few years ago as "Fiat Lux"). He was using a Sinar Norma 5x7 monorail view camera. That was a current model in the 60's. In that same assignment, he used a Hasselblad 500c (or something like that) with chrome-barrel lenses--that was still very much a current model, and he was quite proud of it. (There is one scene in the film where he lists a few things in their proper places in his work room, and the Hasselblad kit was the last one he mentioned. After reciting that list, he looked at the camera with a clearly please and self-satisfied expression, and said "All is right with the world." There is no doubt that he liked the toys as much as we do.) One lens he pictures in his book The Camera was a 121mm/8 Super Angulon in a funky Compur 2. Those lenses were made in the 50's, which means that lens was maybe 15 years old when he revised those books. I've already had my copy of the same lens longer than he had his.
3. He described black-and-white photography as being "not obviously unrealistic" even when it is heavily manipulated, while color loses its realism with only a little manipulation. For that reason, he preferred black and white as a form of expression, not because of any sense of traditionalism.
4. He was always a strong proponent of straight photography. He toned in selenium but I don't see that many techniques, and I'll include split toning as a probably incorrect example, fit with his aesthetic. He also claimed that his later prints were darker and more intense than his earlier prints, and there's a good chance that was a response to materials that were available.
5. Yes, he used an ancient 8x10 horizontal enlarger, but several times he upgraded the lighting system to a modern technology that gave him greater control.
In short, I don't think one could at all assume that Adams had Luddite tendencies that would have eschewed digital techniques. He might well have eschewed a lot of digital work, but that is a different thing.
On the question of his aesthetic, I do not understand the notion of his images appealing to people out of nostalgia. Many who look at his pictures have never been to the places he photographed, and thus the pictures are unlikely to recall fond memories. They are simply beautiful images of beautiful places. Showing the natural scene in all its beauty was something he did talk about. I don't see how that motivation becomes stale. It doesn't have to describe the boundaries of art, of course, but I would hate to think there is ever a time when the boundaries of art would exclude that aesthetic. His photos wanted to be where he made the picture, not long for another time. Maybe long for another condition, but again that is a different thing.
And just because old photographers use techniques they have mastered doesn't mean they are opposed to new techniques. It just means they don't want to start all over. I sometimes think we over-value innovation in art, and forget that art can have a simple purpose of bringing beauty to our lives in addition to its other purposes.
In my tuba-playing circles, we have these same conversations. There are two real icons of American tuba playing in the 20th century: William Bell and Arnold Jacobs. Most modern tuba players, and I don't limit this to America, can trace some portion of their training to pedagogy developed by one of these two artists. Bell played in the Sousa band, ending up in New York playing in the NBC Symphony (under Toscanini). Jacobs was the renowned tuba player in the Chicago Symphony for 44 years, including the period when that ensemble established a whole new standard for brass playing in orchestras.
Many times, young tuba players ask whether Jacobs could have won an audition today. They are usually complaining that every orchestra job has 300 applicants, of which 100 are qualified, 50 would do an excellent job, and 10 would be world-class. They are reacting to the apparent arbitrariness of whatever choice is made. And we react the same way to Adams, who became extremely famous for direct and beautiful pictures of mountains and skies that we now think are cliche. We make pictures of mountains and skies, and we don't become famous because those who hold the keys to such fame (assuming anyone does) abhor whatever they perceive to be cliche, so we think that success is arbitrary. It may or may not be, but it doesn't diminish what Adams did with the tools he had available, and it does not pass judgment on how forward-thinking he might have been.
Rick "who would love to see some famous Adams images in new forms, with the photographer and printer given separate but equal billing" Denney
Rick - Your comment reminds me of one of my favorite Far Side cartoons, where an
orchestra conductor was being issued by the Devil into his room in hell, where there
are a bunch of high school kids playing instruments, including a tuba. I wonder what
Adams would have really thought is some digital types got ahold of his images today
and just went free-fall. His own printings may have improved over the years, but
the reproductions in books (which would certainly involve digital workflow today),
and well as the prints made from his negatives for sale by his students didn't drift
very far off-course. And just because he talked about things or even complemented
them in other peoples work doesn't mean he had any intention of adopting them
for his own visualization. At the moment eveyone thinks there a giant visual revolution going on just because we have digital. All kinds of giant revolutions went
on in both art and photography during Adams lifetime and he pretty much stuck to
the same theme. In a way I admire him for it. He had his priorities intact. But why
so much fuss about him anyway, other than the fun of speculating about it? Why not
ask why Brett Weston burned his negatives, which gives him an A+ in my book.
Originally Posted by rcjtapio
Thank you Rick for such a thoughtful and thought-provoking reply. More than any other post in this forum, it has helped me better align my perception of AA and his work with the evidence of his own words. It can be a difficult task! Often I come across statements – like those above – that seem flat contradictions, but may also be entirely consistent if read with a different interpretation. His words alone can provide a healthy dose of misunderstanding (as his images almost never do for me).
I also find AA’s comparison (negative = score, print = performance) a very telling one – as I do his generous acknowledgment of interpretations by others in his statement that “performer” isn’t necessarily the “composer.” (Makes one curious where the conductor fits in, by the way.) Yet, I wonder how wide this latitude really was, since, as you say, he was willing to allow students to make prints from his negatives “under close supervision.” Did he allow a wider latitude for others?
Even with my interest in AA’s own words and the competing interpretations they make possible, your statement above is where I’m always led in the end. Many of AA’s images strike my eyes with the ravishing spectacle of nature with a force nearly equal to my direct and immediate experience of it. What more need I ask from a photograph, I often ask myself.
Heroique - Adams was trained as a classical musician. When he referred to score and performance it implied something very nuanced. I don't think he had in mind
Mozart being performed by Guns n' Roses! I never saw an actual Adams print until I
was in my mid-30's, after I was already displaying my own work. But I did grow up
in the Sierras and instantly recognized just how much effort Adams took attempting
to capture the essence of Sierra light itself. The tactical problem arises when you are simultaneously attempting to increase the drama or textural contrast of the
scene. That's where the "unrealism" of the red-filter skies and plus development of
the negative come in handy. Sometimes the actual light was much flatter than what
he envisioned for the print and so forth. If you overdo that in color with a polarizer,
for example, it simply looks fake. Adams was a master illusionist - but what in fact
he was portraying was the essence of the light actually in front of him. It wasn't fake in this sense at all. And this is why some ill-informed comments annoy me.
Just because there was a TV documentary in which some studio hack took one of
Adams negatives and made an idiot-looking false-color presentation of it for mere
effect does not mean he did or ever would do something like that. In fact, in the next major documentary of him, John Sarkowski outright states that Adams creative
era ended in the 1940's, and that thereafter, his importance was as a teacher and
environmentalist. While I think that particular statement went overboard, it does
illustrate the fact that once he developed the Zone System and his signature cold-toned silver image style, and an elementary mode of dodging and burning, he really
stayed within the same groove the rest of his life. Why would he do otherwise. His
gift was the ability to control the nuances of his specific chosen medium quite well.
The mistake of so many neophyte digital printers is not to work within limitation;
they simply go ape because there are so many new toy options. I could care less
how someone actually prints, and one method is inherently no better than another.
But a great printmaker will learn restraint. The farthest Adams ever got from his
center was to make slightly softer mural prints, simply because the detail of his early negatives didn't hold up all that well under significant enlargement.
The revolution one endures always looms large in their thinking compared to the one they read about (if they read).
I didn't say that I thought Adams would embrace digital himself or that he would let students print from his negatives while he was alive. But he did place his negatives in a place where students would have access to it, and that was the context of that statement he made in the film.
I completely agree that if it was to be represented as his work, then it should closely follow his aesthetic. Much music gets "interpreted" differently from what is written in the score, and I think when the composer writes instructions, they should be followed. They define the boundaries within which interpretation resides, unless its departure is disclosed as such. But that opinion is certainly not universal among musicians.
Rick "who has that Far Side cartoon stuck to his refrigerator" Denney
Heroique - regarding Adams loaning negatives to his students ... he was quite open
minded and complementary about other people's styles. But the proof is in the pudding. When he had his images reproduced in books and postcards etc they better
damn well come as close as possible to his darkroom prints (he even modified prints
specifically for offset reproduction, so they'd come out like his mounted prints). And
when student-done prints ended up in the Yosemite gift shop - they certainly matched his own interpretation of the score and not theirs! Yes, he selenium enhanced the Moonrise negative and so forth, but again, these are nuances. You have to take his own published statements about photography in general like you
would a political commentator or something. It doesn't mean that it's they way the
individual himself actually does things. Adams was married to his Zone-system
technique and specific darkroom technique. And even in the realm of simple silver
gelatin printing there are all kinds of options and creative tools he apparently never
seriously explored. From a technical standpoint, there are probably any number of
us who can make better prints today. But Adams could certainly combine an illusion
of realism with finely-nuanced visual poetry. But make no mistake about it, it was
a romanticized impression of realism he was after.
Rick - I must confess that I like Guns n' Roses better than Mozart, so all my sarcasm
is just for analogy. Unfortunately, when I came on the scene Adams was already old
and sick. I did share one major retrospective with him, and it was the largest set
of his mural prints ever assembled. Because the negatives were basically fuzzy at
that degree of enlargement, he wisely emphasized the poetic mood rather than the
drama of various classic images, and they had a completely different feel than what
we stereotypically regard as his work, even though the basic darkroom technique
was analogous. What I miss in many of his wannabee clones is that poetic sensitivity, which does indeed remind one of a finely-crafted and nuanced musical
score.
Interesting comment. I have a library copy of "The Camera" at home - on the cover is a picture of a full moon rising over Half Dome; inside the book there is another example of it. The two prints are significantly different, not just in format (the cover is vertically rectangular, the inside shot is square) but also in contrast and intensity. The shadow detail, clearly visible in the cover shot, has gone to black inside. Even AA's own books aren't free from variation.
Robert - I don't think any publisher of that era was going to spend a premium to make
the dust cover to a "how to" book look precisely the way it was meant to. Nor would
any nowadays either. Let's leave room for a little common sense here.
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