Several years ago, the Dayton Art Institute had an exhibit of Ansel Adams and other photographers of the western United States. The exhibit included 3 of the Hernandez photographs, printed by Adams, hanging on one wall. I think the time span between the first and last print was something over 30 years !!!
The difference in the prints was amazing.
Talk about some expensive wallpaper !!!
There is a considerable difference in Moonrise, Hernandez prints of early and later vintage. In the early ones, the print is a little flatter, the sky is much less burned-in, and it seems generally weaker, at least by comparison. Later prints typify what we now think of as the "Ansel Adams" printing style; deep black skies, more dramatic (ie, slightly higher) contrast, physically larger scale.
I've heard it argued that the earlier, "more subtle" prints are superior, but most, including Adams himself, prefer the later prints. I'm not sure which is more in demand auction-price wise, as both "early vintage" and "larger, more dramatic" are qualities collectors value.
BTW, I've also heard, though it's sometimes disputed, that many of Adams' "fine prints," including Moonrise, Hernandez, are made from copy negatives he made from an especially good print.
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
since we're kind of on the topic of astronomy, I have just heard on BBC radio, via someone at NOAA Boulder, Colorado, that there is a mega sun spot which has just (3 hours ago) let rip an extremely large solar flare in the general direction of Earth (thats us). This is very likely to produce aurora borealis ( and the other one ) of unusual brightness/activity in approx 24 hours from now. i.e. 23:00 GMT 14th Sept give or take a few hours.
cameras at the ready if you are in northerly or southerly latitudes...
For what it's worth: NPR: Re-Creating an Ansel Adams Masterpiece.
Just finished reading Nancy Newhall's classic collection of essays on significant early and mid-20th century photographers. In there, she says Ansel was notorious for not remembering dates and times of many of his photos. He kept meticulous exposure reconds, but was very fuzzy about dates and time of day. So it's not surprising that the astronomers have given us a more accurate dating for "Autumn Moon."
Come to think of it, I'm pretty fuzzy about that sort of thing as well.
An interesting note is that they were able to locate just where the photo was taken from. IIRC the quote was something like "ten feet in either direction made a noticeable difference" (in the image content). Proof yet again that in landscape work "knowing where to stand" is very important.
You actually can get a fairly good idea from just measuring the image and
working with a topo map--I think I got it within about 100 feet, though I
wouldn't have bet money on it. Anything better would require a trip to
Glacier Point.
It looks as though the turnout was reasonable; 300 people is actually quite
manageable for that area.
There's a description, including a few photos, in this
article on the SF Chronicle web site. There even was a photographer
The Sun was about 2° higher than it was in 1948, so the shadow cast by"... using an old-fashioned 5x7 view camera, similar to the model used by
Adams."
the peak near the middle of the image was a bit lower, but this appears to
have made less difference that I had expected.
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