"Ansel Adams" plates found at garage sale

[PenGun]

I have some of my grandfathers glass negs from India. Pretty nice but not a lot of resolution, I have no idea how they were made.

Easy to scan ... that's fer sure.

[Frank Petronio]

Where is that dude who got on my case for marking up a lens I bought for a low price? He really needs to call these people out and set them straight!

[Michael Kadillak]

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — A trove of old glass negatives bought at a garage sale for $45 has been authenticated as the lost work of Ansel Adams and worth at least $200 million, an attorney for the owner said Tuesday, but the iconic photographer's representatives dismissed the claim as a fraud and said they're worthless.


The love of money and greed in its purest form are convalescing to try to pull a rabbit out of a hat and even the corporate news picked up in this story this evening. The $45 innocuous "garage sale purchase" is likely going to cost the owner that cannot accept mediocrity his life's savings chasing a rabbit down a hole. It is simply sad. Reminds me of the stubborn engineer that invented the intermittent wiper that Ford stole that Greg Kinnear played in movies.

[DanK]

I don't see how they could do anything with the plates beyond selling them outright...

Maybe I just don't 'get it'....

I REALLY don't understand how they could produce copies of something they didn't actually create....especially without some sort of acknowledgement from the artist, or heirs...or something...

If I were rummaging garage sales and found an original AA print, I surely wouldn't feel I could make prints of it because I had 'found' it....nor if I had bought the print in a gallery....

Same would be the case of an original negative, ambrotype, tintype, etc...

Thanks,
Dan

[John Bowen]

It's the lead story on the online Wall Street Journal....

[DanK]

Even the printer doesn't seem convinced....

Kalisher commented that, “I am thrilled to be part of the process to bring these remarkable photographs to light. Whoever captured these images was a photographer of immense talent.” (http://ricknorsigian.com/norsigian_purchase.html)

Dan

[Allen in Montreal]

It's the lead story on the online Wall Street Journal....

Slow news day,
and since the Feds have made it illegal for media to get close to the oil spill......

[Merg Ross]

As I understand it, Brett only destroyed a few negs, mostly as show.

Eric, partly true. The negatives that he burned in his fireplace on his 80th birthday were for show; the international press was there for the occasion and the burn party was typical Brett. He was a true "Pyromaniac", in more than one sense.

However, the majority of his negatives were otherwise destroyed, except for a few in the vault when he died. Also, there were a few, which Cole showed me at the 80th birthday celebration, that were punched with holes and are at CCP in Tucson.

Now, to the topic of Ansel and the garage find windfall. Suppose, for the sake of arguement, that they were Ansel's images; so what. At that point in his career, the summer of 1937, he was not so far behind with his printing to not have printed what he thought was worthy. So, assuming that these are in fact his negatives or plates, they would have already been rejected by him as representations of his best vision. We all go through this process, some save and some discard.

So, at best, we have discarded Ansel Adams negatives that are going to be printed by printer Mr. X (not Alan Ross) and be sold for huge amounts of money. Perfect nonsense for the evening news tonight: "Ansel Adams Prints Found at Garage Sale Worth $200,000,000. I don't think so.

There were other photographers who used Ansel's darkroom in Yosemite before the fire, working in similar formats and with similar subject matter.

My old friend Rondal said it best when shown the great garage find: "Oh no, not Ansel. These are not compositions Ansel would have made". Ron might know, he was there the night of the darkroom fire and was also Ansel's assisstant.

[Mark Sawyer]

Each of us can only hope our own bones are so thoroughly picked after our deaths. It is, perhaps, the truest form of artistic validation, regardless of whether such images are actually our own or not...

[wager123]

please see below this excerpt from a email i recieved from my friend Alan Ross




Dear Mitch,

This is going to be a quick message in response to numerous emails I have received concerning some glass plate negatives purchased by a Mr. Norsigian at a California garage sale, and which he attributes authorship of to Ansel Adams. He now seems to be claiming that the plates have been "authenticated" at a value of $200,000,000. The Norsigian group contacted me earlier this year, and I have seen jpegs of all the images. I do not believe they ARE the work of Ansel Adams. See below for my opinion.

Cheers,


alan@rossimages.net
www.alanrossphotography.com



CNN Newsbreak:
"Experts: Ansel Adams photos found at garage sale worth $200 million"

Interestingly enough, the New York Times has not seen fit to provide coverage of this claim as yet.

The images in the Norsigian collection do seem to be the work of a competent photographer working in Yosemite, San Francisco and Carmel. In a format used by AA in the late 20's. The camera locations are similar to known Adams favorites - but then, most of those were primary tourist viewpoints offering an obvious place to plant a camera.

Some of the images are of yachting scenes on San Francisco Bay. Nothing of any similarity in subject or format exists in the Adams Archive. LIkewise some utterly bland images of a Spanish-style mission.

A major claim in the voice for authenticity is that one image - I believe of the Jeffrey Pine on Sentinel Dome - shows some same/similar cloud formations as exist in a known Adams image. Anyone who knew Ansel also knows that he very often had fellow photographers at his side - either by invitation or coincidence - when he was out photographing. The clouds could easily have been recorded by a different camera a few feet away.

The plates seem to show signs of fire damage. Yes, Ansel's Yosemite darkroom caught fire in 1938 and a number of prized negatives were lost. For me, this is the weak-link/downfall of the authenticity claimants. Ansel was working with a 6.5x8.5 plate camera when he did Monolith in 1927. The fire was in 1938. A good number of negatives made prior to the fire had been printed many times - Pine Branches in Snow comes to mind, for one example. As well as I know Ansel's work, and as far as I have otherwise heard, not ONE authenticated AA print from ANY of the Norsigian plates is known. If it was a good image - and some of these are - Ansel couldn't have NOT resisted making more than one print of each - and even then SOME would have survived to exist in Ansel's own archive or in the collections of photgapehr and Sierra Club friends.

They are some nice images, but I cannot believe they are the work of Ansel Adams.

And 200 million dollars is ______. You fill in the blank.





Alan



This message can be forwarded - so if you have anyone in mind who would be