Why Moonrise over Hernandez?

[Stephen Willard]

I have endured many weeks of a particular nagging thought like one of those melodies that runs repeatedly in your mind over and over again and you are unable escape from its repetitions. It was not until I was leafing through my new book Ansel Adams at 100 did I decided to to shed this thought and ponder its answer. It really is not a thought, but rather a question of why. Why Moonrise over Hernandez? In particular, why was Moonrise over Hernandez Adam's most sold print?

I could think of a countless photographs from his body of work that are far more powerful and vivid then Moonrise over Hernandez. There is El Capitain, Aspens, Clearing Winter Storm, Mount Williamson, Heaven’s Peak, Autumn Tree Against Cathedral Rocks, Mount Mckinley and Wonder Lake, Wanda Lake, Lake and Cliffs, or Overlooking the Snake River Toward the Tetons.

So I pose this question to the intelligence of this community of artist photographers in hopes of finding an answer that will put my nagging thought of why to rest.

Why do you think Moonrise over Hernandez was Adam's most sold print?

[Heroique]

Stephen,

I think your question is fair – and I hope we can all acknowledge at once that “units sold” does not (necessarily) indicate “quality achieved.”

And like all good questions, yours quickly raises others that may help amplify it, including:

1) Was "Moonrise" promoted or sold any differently than other AA photos?
2) Has the long-lived popular taste influenced, or reinforced critical taste, and vice versa?
3) Might future popular taste for “Moonrise” decline, and taste for the other AA photos grow?
4) Have other master-photographers consistently admired one or two AA photos, like this one?

I don't possess a strong enough background in marketing (or photographic history) to address your question directly, but I do look forward to learning more from the best answers in this thread.

[Alan Davenport]

Why do you think Moonrise over Hernandez was Adam's most sold print?

No idea, really. Maybe he sold it cheaper than anything else?

[kev curry]

When seen as a 20x24'' print in the flesh, it really is truly spectacular. Just thought I'd say that

[Heroique]

There’s also AA’s thrilling story about taking “Moonrise” (he couldn't find his meter; see The Negative, Chapter 6), and I’m curious if that may have added to its “sales appeal” – did a promotional effort ever make use of this story?

Or maybe this is a case where sales are, simply, due to a magnificent photo w/ broad appeal.

That is, it may have “sold itself.”

[Stephen Willard]

To address this question, one might consider what is actually different about Moonrise over Hernandez unlike the alternative images I noted in my initial question. Moonrise over Hernandez has a human foot print of mankind. It is about a remote modest community of crosses, churches, and dwellings. Hernandez is about an isolated group of people coming together as a tribe to fend off the unforgiving forces of the natural world. Hernandez domesticates the land. It tames the forces of nature for those who fear the land. The mountains are diminished while the tribal dwellings and its crosses become prominent. It makes the viewer feel safe against the elements by the divine light that warms the crosses.

This past summer I spent close to three months in the backcountry with my llamas and cameras living in isolation. I wrote many papers exploring where my place is as an artist, what purpose do I serve as an artist, what is art, about the emotional and physical stress I endure to extract a photograph from the land, and what it means to produce sellable art. Moonrise over Hernandez lies at the heart of many questions I have.

It is my belief it has nothing to do with marketing, but rather everything to do with its content. There is something in Moonrise over Hernandez that makes it more appealing then his other work. I have my suspicions, but at this point I am not willing to state them for fear of influencing the ideas and thoughts that my be posted.

[sun of sand]

I have my suspicions, but at this point I am not willing to state them for fear of influencing the ideas and thoughts that my be posted.


what a beauty

[Greg Blank]

Maybe he proudly told the story of his picture taking prowess at many gallery openings and people in the sheep like way that they tend to be, sucked it up and felt compelled to buy the whole thing so to speak. Maybe they were just to timid to buy the good stuff "other less Anselish or less Ansel endorsed stuff" and felt safe buying what they percieved Adams "liked".

It would be a story I would tell if it was mine. Having a story helps !

I think I would have liked knowing E Weston and Ansel and would have enjoyed talking with them both. Maybe at the same time....never the less P Strand is my Hero Like his luminous platinum work

There’s also AA’s thrilling story about taking “Moonrise” (he couldn't find his meter; see The Negative, Chapter 6), and I’m curious if that may have added to its “sales appeal” – did a promotional effort ever make use of this story?

Or maybe this is a case where sales are, simply, due to a magnificent photo w/ broad appeal.

That is, it may have “sold itself.”

[Drew Wiley]

Back to the image itself. I think it encapsulates some of the mystique of the American West in the golden age of the motorist. Here drives someone around a
corner, and suddenly they encounter an icon of rural SW Americana in fairly-tale light (at least, that is the way the picture has been printed). Plus you have the
story to go with it, which was a sudden encounter with fleeting magic. And now
it is gone - the light and the simple innocency of the town - and we're left with a
relict memory of something we wish we had seen. It's not simply nostalgia, but the
symbol of an ideal, just like AA's majestic scenes of Yosemite Valley which so
precisely eliminate all the splattered ice-cream cones on the roads, the mangey
coyotes digging through garbage cans, and all the summer campers choking on
each other's hotdog toasting campfire smoke. Instead, he gives you an ideal, the
Yosemite Valley the whole natural park concept tries to evoke. I don't know how
many lonely ethnically-rich little spots like this still exist in New Mexico, probably
a number of them - but I'm certainly glad this one was recorded for posterity!

[JR Steel]

This is an interesting thread. I have only seen the later version of the print in person. My personal response related to the fragility of my insignificant existence in the universal scheme of things. I think the power of "Moonrise" is the ability to evoke a response, maybe not Adams response, but yet an emotional movement in most people.