Feast your eyes and maybe get some inspiration for your own darkroom enhancements
http://www.petapixel.com/2011/04/05/...adams-darkroom
Cheers!
Feast your eyes and maybe get some inspiration for your own darkroom enhancements
http://www.petapixel.com/2011/04/05/...adams-darkroom
Cheers!
BTW, meant to say Ansel Adams' darkroom
I was there in February, visiting with a friend. Michael and I visited while my friend met with Michael's wife. Very nice folks and of course a beautiful home. A recently added deck overlooking the ocean would be a pleasure to kick back on with a nice scotch after a session in the darkroom. I think I could stand living there.
I had been to AA's darkroom a couple times before as an assistant for the Friends of the Photography not too long after Ansel's death. Virginia was still alive and was a wonderful person. Nothing terribly fancy or modern about the darkroom -- just well organized and good solid equipment.
Vaughn
I knew that Adams' 8x10 enlarger was made from an old camera, but I never knew it was that fugly! Beautiful != effective! Interesting to see the little rail tracks.
What is the situation there? Is it open to the public as sort of a museum. Is Michael living there?
Bought it from whom? I vaguely recall that the house was left to an organization (Friends of Photography? Wilderness Society?) with the proviso that Virginia could stay in it for the rest of her life, but can't find anything relevant on-line or in my not-really-organized paper trivia file.
The FOP would be correct....
Sadly, the FOP shutdown in 2001/2002. Poor management.
CH
The video is a sort of wasted opportunity, I'm afraid, on the part of the interviewer.
The stories about Moonrise and Monolith are easily the best known stories about Ansel's images and Ansel had related them several times himself in other films not to mention his books. Nothing new at all there. The entire darkroom segment has been done before in well-known films--with the video camera in the same position! In fact, one of those films is intercut into this video, showing Ansel at work in the darkroom.
But I did note a few things of interest. The gallery room next to the living area is lovely. The photos above, library below, with a large viewing/work table off center in the room. I want one!
Michael Adams has been busy digitizing stuff. Would love to see more. He had straight vs. late printing scans of Moonrise to show comparisons, on his Mac. He had a Monolith with yellow filter vs red filter, too. Not new stuff but a very nice way to demonstrate the issues. He also had the dodging and burning instructions for Moonrise--he said he couldn't read the instructions although they seemed clear enough with the brief glance I had of them. I'd love to see more along these lines.
--Darin
It's sure nice that they kept the dkrm digs intact, but it always amazes me how primitive AA's tool kit was, not only in terms of physical gear, but with respect to his
technical options. Seems like he spent a lot of time going through dodging/burning hell.
We've got a lot more tricks these days, with better film, dev, and papers to make things so much easier.
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