"Ansel Adams" plates found at garage sale

[cowanw]

Wow, that layover at petapixel is pretty convincing. There might be a MOMA exhibit for Uncle Earle in the future.
Regards
Bill

[Drew Wiley]

If they want to sell cute nostalgic digital prints of these images, I don't see anything
wrong with that. Selling them as AA's own work would appear to be wishful thinking at
best, fraudulent at worst, leaving them open to lawsuit. Stylistically, absolutely no way. This fellow (whether Uncle Earl or someone else) had some talent, but simply didn't look at things the way AA did, despite the generically similar genre. Alt's analysis is the most pitiful, being an LF photographer. At that point in AA's career, there were probably thousands of photographers around who could expose and develop negs just as well as he did, and no doubt some of them showed up at Yosemite each year. These are all parking lot or scenic viewpoint shots, not backcountry themes like one would expect an example or two of, if they really belonged to AA.

[Gary Nylander]

I have been watching these stories about the supposedly lost negatives of Ansel Adams with a great deal of interest. I just can't imagine how negatives printed by someone less can be worth so much money, its a little like finding a long lost half-finished painting by Rembrandt and having someone else complete the painting and charging millions of dollars for the painting.

Here are a couple recent links, one by the New York Times and the other by the Wall Street Journal, I particularly enjoyed the Wall Street Journal article.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/ar...pagewanted=all

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000..._Entertainment

[Jon Shiu]

another article:
http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/08/14/...ans-photo.html

Jon

[ic-racer]

David Streets, the Beverly Hills appraiser and art dealer who pegged their value at up to $200 million, stands to make money by selling prints from the negatives. The New York Times on Friday reported that Streets has a criminal record that includes fraud convictions.

There is a good quote!

They indeed are criminals.

[sanchi heuser]

There is a good quote!

They indeed are criminals.

Here's the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/ar.../14photos.html

I like to point at another point:
What answer have Mr. Norsigian and his fabulous team to the question,
how the negatives found the way to the garage seller?

sanchi

[Richard K.]

Here's the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/ar.../14photos.html

I like to point at another point:
What answer have Mr. Norsigian and his fabulous team to the question,
how the negatives found the way to the garage seller?

sanchi

They're being um...circumspect about it...see their latest press release:

http://ricknorsigian.com/lost_html/p...ses/81510.html

[sanchi heuser]

They're being um...circumspect about it...see their latest press release:

http://ricknorsigian.com/lost_html/p...ses/81510.html

Seems as if everybody wants to have a piece from the virtual 200 million cake
No information in the sense of provenance
Provenance> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provenance

If that case is closed maybe some more people will understand
that if two photographers make a picture of the same tree or whatever,
there can lie worlds between the resulting negatives not to mention the prints.
And they'll understand that the different values of that negatives/prints are
not just because one of the photographers has a famous name now,
but from the outstanding vision and the constant labour and countless efforts
to realize it.


sanchi

[philip964]

Ansel Adam's trust has filed suit.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...l/7168359.html

Not surprising. However, I assume if it goes to trial one way to win would be to prove they were actually Ansel Adam's negatives.

[Michael Kadillak]

Ansel Adam's trust has filed suit.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...l/7168359.html

Not surprising. However, I assume if it goes to trial one way to win would be to prove they were actually Ansel Adam's negatives.

The lawyers really get their game on when they feel that the opposition has taken a swift kick in the groin which I feel is the case here.

The "experts" from the Adams trust will request that the court force Norsegian to make the negatives available so that a chemical analysis of the emulsion and the chemicals used to develop the negatives can be properly ascertained. They will also evaluate the film holder marks on the glass plates under magnification to compare these plates to known holders that AA used previously. It is my understanding that plate holders from various makers have a very unique signature that can be identified. The hardest part here will be the protracted period until trial because I cannot fathom a settlement unless the guy that sold him the glass plate negatives tells Norsegian that he knows for a fact that these are Uncle Earls. Up to this point the seller wants some monetary compensation.

What a bag of crap.