Opinions on AA.

[Peter De Smidt]

Beaumont Newhall, who I studied with, spent a whole week on AA in his 20th century history of photography class.

Did he talk about Mortensen?

[William McEwen]

Ha! I like that "geysers" - I'm thinking it wasn't a typo?

Ha, ha, I wish I could claim otherwise, but it's just a dumb typo.

[Mark Sampson]

...I understand that Mr. Newhall referred to William Mortensen as "the Thomas Kinkade of photography".

[Kirk Gittings]

Did he talk about Mortensen?

I remember him spending some time talking about pictorialism and f64's reaction to it and AA's reaction in particular as a prelude and foundation to modernism. His classes, two semesters worth, plus special topics classes and individual study were very similarly structured thematically to his book. He spiced up the lectures with personal anecdotes as he knew so many of these people. In addition it was living history. In one semester of the class i took on the twentieth century, Brett Weston, Imogene Cunningham and Ansel Adams all dropped into the class for a visit and Q&A. It was truly amazing.

[Alan Curtis]

Kirk
What a wonderful opportunity to take a class with those influential guest appearances. This is why this forum is excellent, there are photographers like yourself and Merg Ross who interacted with the photographers who continue to influence all of us.
When did you take that course from Beaumont?

[ross]

.....In one semester of the class i took on the twentieth century, Brett Weston, Imogene Cunningham and Ansel Adams all dropped into the class for a visit and Q&A. It was truly amazing.

Wow! What a great experience!

[MDR]

I find the Kinkade comment very funny because I recently had discussion with a fellow photographer who is heavely involved in the art scene and he referred to AA pictures as calendar pictures. I btw like William Mortensen and AA although I have to admit that I prefer William Henry Jackson to AA. Jackson and or his assistant(s) photo might not have the drama but some of his pictures are just beautiful and have a serenity that AA often lacks imho. And there is nothing shameful in self promotion if you don't overdo it.

Kirk I am completely and utterly jealous since I always wanted to meet Cunningham, a vastly underated member of the f64 group.

Dominik

[Brian C. Miller]

Rick "not willing to dig for that accented e" Denney

Press and hold the ALT key, then type 130 on the numeric keypad. If you're really good, you can do "copy con program.com" this way, too, without using debug.exe to translate the assembly mnemonics!

Beautiful women are not passe, but pictures of beautiful women certainly can be.

Clichéd, unimaginative pictures can be passé. I think Andy Warhol did a quite a bit about the concept of repetitive imagery.

The tuba is definitely passe. How many professional tuba players do you know?

I don't know any professional guitar players, either. (OK, I also didn't know the names of any of the guys in the Rolling Stones until they were spoofed in Bloom County.) But ignorance of the esoteric, or even common, does not mean something has become passé, it just indicates ignorance, which of course is remedied with education.

No, something like banjo orchestras are passé, because nobody can stand them anymore!

If one uses ignorance as a measure of something being passé, then engineering is passé! But of course we rely on it more and yet more.

Imagine how much one might lose appreciation for beauty if they spent all day every day looking at pictures of them. No subject, not even one as magnificent as Half Dome, is immune to becoming portrayed by Just Another Picture of Half Dome.

Ah, so here we have it: the loss of appreciation! The loss of appreciation of Campbell's soup cans and movie stars, of the common and ordinary, and even of the rare and extraordinary.

Replaced by ... reality television. And reruns. "Thirteen channels of shit of the TV, and nothing to choose from..."

Kill your TV. You'll feel much better!

-- Brian "whose TV died a natural death after 13 years and was never replaced" Miller

[Merg Ross]

I didn't think I would get suckered into this one, but since the thread has strayed from the original unanswerable question, I will comment on the man.

When thinking of Ansel Adams, I recall the smiling face behind the beard, the quick wit, the twinkling eyes, the laugh and the red suspenders. Add to that the visits to his home, and he to mine while growing up, photographing him receiving his 1968 Honorary Degree at UC, Berkeley and the letter that follwed after he received my prints. If politics were allowed on this forum, I would elaborate on his letter; Ansel had very strong political views! And, forever memorable, hearing him play the piano on our mutual visit to Boston.

Earlier in this thread, Brian Ellis listed a number of Ansel's accomplishments. There were many, and regardless of what one may think of his photography, those reading this forum owe much to Ansel for his enormous contributions to photography.

However, when I think of Ansel, I don't first think of Moonrise or his other iconic images; I think of the man. He was a tremendously talented person, who happened to make photographs.

[Kirk Gittings]

Kirk
What a wonderful opportunity to take a class with those influential guest appearances. This is why this forum is excellent, there are photographers like yourself and Merg Ross who interacted with the photographers who continue to influence all of us.
When did you take that course from Beaumont?

Off the top of my head I would say in 70 or 71 for the HoP classes (19th and 20th centuries), more likely 71 I think. Then I did a special topics class with him on Modernism and an individual study on Wynn Bullock probably in 72.