Ansel Adams: Sierra Nevada The John Muir Trail - repro quality ?

[Drew Wiley]

I know what you mean, Preston; but I have a minor grudge against Norman Clyde.
When I was 18 I had my heart set upon a particularly impressive granite spire along
the Silver Divide which was allegedly unclimbed. After freeclimbing the thing and
almost pissing my pants, I finally attained the quite airy summit - but oops, there
was a salmon-egg jar with Norman Clyde's name in it from 1947! That guy could
sure get around!

[tgtaylor]

http://fotop.net/golfer/Master_Photo...land_Lake_1923

Don't install the Chineese characters but click on the image at the top.

[Drew Wiley]

That shot of Banner Pk was from AA's very early set of Parmelian Prints which he
showed to Stieglitz and if I recall correctly, comprised one of the images in his first
official portfolio. It exemplifies what I noted earlier, and is a relatively warm-colored
inviting little print, still loved by many today. I haven't been there for a few years,
but the last time I was I left the trail to cross-country a couple days, and scuffed up
an attractive obsidian spearhead near the point I left the trail. That whole side of the
Ritter Range is famous and inviting, while the backside is a lot rougher and more
lonely, with a whole different kind of appeal. I can never get enough of that whole area.

[tgtaylor]

On my way this afternoon to pick up some vitamins at Country Sun in Palo Alto and armed with a hefty discount coupon, I stopped in the Sunnyvale Borders and bought a shrink wrapped copy of Adams' book. I was glad I did.

First, I was surprised to learn that it was Norman Clyde who discovered the body of Peter Starr back in 1933 and not Jules Eichorn whom hitherto I always thought did. In fact, before today I would have bet money that it was Jules and not Norman - and I'm not the betting type.

Secondly, I found the reproductions quite satisfactory - better than I had remembered them to be. This may be due to the fact that I had last saw them in a library book which may have been an inexpensive reproduction of the original 1938 publicatio of which only 500 copies were printed. Although the images were not as "sharp" as could be, it must be remembered that they were taken in the 1920's and '30's with optics, film emulsions, and printing technology all making dramatic improvements in the ensuing decades. Moreover, there was no mention in the foreword or introduction that the current printing wasn't merely a reprinting, albeit using modern printing technology, of the original printing plates of the first edition. Yes, the photo of Mount Clarence King reproduced on the cover is much better than what is reproduced in the interior, but then again Banner Peak and Thousand Island Lake is much better than that which appears on the web.

Can it be “redone” in a manner that is both technically and aesthetically pleasing? Yes! Should it be redone? Again, yes! The Sierra Nevada is one of the crown jewels of North American continent and eminently worthy of a long term project by a committed and talented photographer.

Thomas

[Drew Wiley]

Thomas, the set of Minarets which lies just west of the main ridge was seldom visited. It vaguely seems to me that it is somewhere along the dangerous col inbetween where Walt Starr fell. Another portion seldom climbed is the secondary
but magnificent set of pinnacles above Deadhorse Lk. I was having a wonderful day there one Oct when an Otter plane kept buzzing over and over the ridge, apparently with an aerial photographer as the client. How I longed for a surface-to-air missle at that point in time!

[Drew Wiley]

Ansel took a famous lengthwise shot of the Minarets by climbing opposite, up above
Iceberg Lake onto the big volcanic knob. Clyde Minaret is visible at the edge, but not
from its classic front view. Norman Clyde himself has the unique distinction of having three magnificent Sierra peaks named for him. Besides Clyde Minaret (the
most spectacular of them all), there is Norman Clyde Peak along the 14000 ft Palisade range, and the stunning Clyde Spires behind Picture Peak in middle Sabrina
basin. I was so absorbed photographing the latter spires two years ago that I had
totally forgotten to eat for a day and then became dizzy. I sat down on a rock and worried what had gone wrong with me, but then everything was fine after I ate a
candy bar. The peak named for AA is in a seldom-traveled section of the upper Merced opposite Mt Lyell, and his own foreboding shot of the dark peak looming
above the chiarascuro lighting of the barely-treed basin below is one of the great
classics of Sierra photography. He gives an interesting account of climbing it in his
autobiography using a potentially fatal section of sash-cord. An utterly naive climber,
just as I was.

[Preston]

There is a very detailed account of the search for Walter Starr Jr., written by Norman Clyde, in a book titledNorman Clyde of the Sierra Nevada-Rambles Through the Range of Light-29 Essays by Norman Clyde. Scrimshaw Press, San Francisco. 1971. ISBN:0-912020-19-9.

This is a wonderful book, with a forward by Francis Farquhar and a letter written by Smoke Blanchard. It also includes some interesting photos taken by Norman. It should be essential reading for any Sierra bum.

--P

[rdenney]

I think it was in the 60's that books of Adams's photos started being printed in duotone using inks of good glossiness on coated paper. My 1950 first edition of "My Camera in the National Parks" was printing in black ink only on Kromekote, which looks to me as though the paper was varnished after printing, as was the case with my early printing of Eliot Porter's "In Wildness...".

I recall seeing an original edition of Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras at a museum in San Antonio some years ago. I don't recall if that edition bound photographic prints in with the text, but my dim memory is coming up with relatively matte surfaces and no over-varnish or coating. The photos in that edition lacked the dynamic range of his glossy prints and later reproductions.

I think it's safe to say that Adams was keenly interested in achieving the best possible reproduction quality available in the day, but the technology of reproducing photographs surely saw huge improvements in the period between the 30's and the 70's. Since that time, several books of Adams's photos have been made from the copy negatives he supplied to the government as fulfillment of his national parks contract, and the quality of those can't touch the later duotone editions. They can't even touch those 1950 Kromekote reproductions.

How was the later edition reproduced? Did they re-engrave the plates? (This should be noted on the masthead if they did.) If so, what was the source? Adams, as I recall, made prints especially tweaked for reproduction, at least for his later works. Or (dim memory again) he had one of his assistants do so. Is Alan Ross now making prints for reproduction, from the original negatives? Are they scanning the original negatives, and then correcting them in the computer, for the latest books?

Rick "noting the not-so-good reproductions in the original Basic Photo series" Denney

[Drew Wiley]

Thanks for that tip, Preston. I'll have to search for that account. It fairly amazes me
how prolific some of those mountaineers were. I'm even more impressed how some of the early surveyors got atop places like Wheel Mtn, or how palaeo-Indians would leave atlatl points up on class 3 passes, probably shot at a bighorn sheep or something thousands of years before "modern" Indians with their bows and arrows, who generally stuck to the direct routes to current passes over the Sierra. I tried living off the land
in the high Sierra a number of times and was reasonably successful, but in desperation once resorted to eating wild onions and had a hell of a stomach ache that night. The
Indians of course had their own kind of infrastructure and caches for travel. But some
of the tales of John Muir and Clarence King are patently embellished for literary effect.

[Bill_1856]

After an initial cursory and disappointing look through this much-hyped book (when I bought it last year), I've had another, deeper viewing. I've decided that many of the pictures might be superb, but printed so small (4x5 to 5x7) that they resemble nice B&W picture postcards more than great iconic Ansel Adams images.
There is a larger version of the book available for $1200 (I think it was the size of the original). I wonder if the reproductions are printed any bigger?