New Ansel Adams book and app: "Looking at Ansel Adams"

[AuditorOne]

My copy arrived yesterday and I am already half way through the book. So far I have found this to be a very enjoyable read. There is certainly a lot of familiar information but a lot of it I did not know. I personally think it was very well done.

[RichardSperry]

Ordered and received "Examples".

Skimming through it, very good buy.

[CP Goerz]

About the only 'human' thing I can ever recall about Ansel is when he had an affair and subsequently a nervous breakdown for which he was hospitalized. Many later accounts(including his own) claimed that he had been working too hard, the Saint Ansel machine was up and running. Scant few 'biographies' have even touched upon it preferring to tell us what he ate for breakfast instead.

[Darin Boville]

To its credit the book *does* mention the affair in some detail. Nothing about the affair per se but three pages or so is spent on the difficulties it presented etc and a nice photo of Patsy.

--Darin

[CP Goerz]

I'm not sure of your meaning...it mentions the affair in detail but nothing about the affair per se?


I heard from an informed friend that there are all sorts of letters between Ansel and Virginia that would make better reading about the 'man' than anything written about/by him so far. Maybe they'll be released in about 50 years given this rate of expose'. I'm saying, a mention of an affair 'just' forty years after he dies.....whew!

[Doug Howk]

Chapter 7 of the book includes quotes from Ansel's letters to Patsy. Patsy's letters were apparently not preserved (maybe we should fabricate a conspiracy).

[AuditorOne]

Chapter 7 of the book includes quotes from Ansel's letters to Patsy. Patsy's letters were apparently not preserved (maybe we should fabricate a conspiracy).

Yeah. Real good chance they went up in smoke as soon as Virginia learned of them.

[Darin Boville]

Another odd bit: The chapter on the photo of O"Keefe and Cox. Here's an interesting comparison that captures many of the problems of the book and highlights the quality issues resulting from the Trust's control.

In *Examples* Ansel says that he saw the photograph and "The moment was *now.* If the camera was held level Cox's hat and O'Keefe's figure would be cut into; a side tilt was necessary. Kneeling, I lowered the position of the camera, bringing more of the figures against the sky. This was intuitively and swiftly managed, and I made only one exposure."

Stillman quotes Ansel and describes the scene: "Ansel made two exposures, both visible in the contact sheet. In the first, Cox's hat intersects with O'Keefe's face. 'I was standing precariously on a slating ledge and did not control the horizontal tilt of the camera,' he explained. For the second exposure he knelt down to avoid the overlap."

O.K., Stillman has something new here--that there are two version of this image. But she garbles it badly. The new book provides the contact sheet (a big plus for the book) and there it is, you can plainly see. Two images of Cox and O'Keefe. In the first he is leaning forward and the brim of his hat blocks part of O'Keefe's face. The second negative is the well-known image. But somehow Stillman has the impression that Ansel knelt down after the first exposure in order to avoid the hat brim. But the negatives clearly show that the camera position hasn't moved--the background clouds intersect O'Keefe at the same position on both images. It's just that Cox stood up straighter in the second image. Stillman must have read that Ansel knelt for the famous image, saw the earlier version with the brim issue, and incorrectly surmised that Ansel knelt to solve that problem. If so, that was a poor guess. Stillman--I assumed she is not a photographer--might have been fooled by the slight reframing of the image, downward.

Is Ansel's executive assistant really the right person to write all these Ansel books?

--Darin

[Doug Howk]

Darin, clouds may not be the best indicator of location. If you look at the background hill as well as O'Keefe's position in both images, it does appear to me that Ansel at least bent down slightly. But I'm not a photo sleuth.
As to who should have written this book, John Sexton does say that he was technical consultant for the book. So the things we photographers most care about should be technically correct. As to the rest, its very good light reading material.

[Brian Ellis]

About the only 'human' thing I can ever recall about Ansel is when he had an affair and subsequently a nervous breakdown for which he was hospitalized. Many later accounts(including his own) claimed that he had been working too hard, the Saint Ansel machine was up and running. Scant few 'biographies' have even touched upon it preferring to tell us what he ate for breakfast instead.

It's truly a shame that biographies of Adams deal primarily with his work and other aspects of his life and don't provide enough detail about a love affair to satisfy your prurient interests. How much more detail would you like than the information provided in Mary Alinder's biography? Time and date of meetings in motels? Photographs of Adams and Patsy in compromising positions perhaps?

If that "affair" is all you can recall about Adams as a "human" then you either have a very bad memory or you knew nothing about him in the first place.