Happy Birthday Ansel!

[dsphotog]

Ansel's 111th birthday!
Share your Ansel stories.

[chassis]

Ansel's "Clearing Winter Storm", in his book The Negative, was the first photograph that made my jaw drop and gave me a feeling of butterflies in my stomach.

[dsphotog]

I was just a kid, on vacation with my parents, we pulled off on the side of Hwy 1 for lunch, there was a bearded man hanging around near his car that had a strange platform on the roof. My mom said to us "That man looks like he lives in his car, I'm going to take him a sandwich." Years later I saw a picture of Ansel with his car/platform, and was reminded of that moment on Hwy 1....

[Heroique]

Thanks Ansel for the images, teaching, inspiration.

It would be fun to gather at his headstone to share stories.

His headstone being, of course, Mount Ansel Adams.

:)

[Kirk Gittings]

Happy birthday Ansel!

I met him briefly in Beaumont Newhall's History of Photography class at UNM-maybe 1971. Some years later in 1982 on the night of my MFA graduation, after too much celebration, my cohorts and I decided to see if we could call Ansel. Too our astonishment he had a listed number and answered the phone himself! He was very gracious and amused. He was all that and more. I later called him to apologize which led to a sporadic interchange by phone and a couple of postcards over maybe 18 months on some photography topics-some moments I treasure.

[tgtaylor]

The house in which he was born is still standing in San Francisco if you know where to look. There's a bench and statue in what is now the front yard which looks to be from the original garden.

Thomas

[C. D. Keth]

I would be willing to bet that many of us were first exposed to large format and to black and white photographs through Ansel Adams. His work is a large reason I picked up a view camera.

[Mirek Kania]

I am colour blind and that was the reason, why I could not become "profesional photographer", in still comunistic Poland. Colour blindness was disqualifying in the recruitment process for technical photographic high school in Warsaw, that time.
So I became someone else. But years later I found out, I still need to look black and white to set proper exposure at the coloured world. And colour blindness has nothing to do with photography.

[john borrelli]

An Adam's exhibit came to Massachusetts recently at the Peabody Essex Museum and there was a beautiful print of Clearing Winter Storm. The image is something to see in person. It took my breath away.

I have attended two other AA exhibits over the years and the museums had videos they showed of Ansel Adams. In one of those videos, Ansel was conducting a class in the field and was demonstrating how to use a view camera and realized he had made a mistake which he then laughed about.

As an amateur, I have found both the image and the mistake to be inspiring in their own ways.

[Joe O'Hara]

I would be willing to bet that many of us were first exposed to large format and to black and white photographs through Ansel Adams. His work is a large reason I picked up a view camera.

Oh yes. I first saw his prints in what was then called The Print Club in Philadelphia, back around 1971. I remember most vividly some of the more intimate pictures of aspens and dogwoods. They looked like light, and had the odd effect of seeming to stop the subjective flow of time, when you looked at them closely.

16x20 prints were offered at $400 then, an inconceivable fortune to me at that time.

Happy Birthday.

[Bernice Loui]

It was the early 1980's during my first visit to the Weston gallery in Carmel that Ansel's B&W prints came to life. They where stunning, never seen any B&W prints like these before. This happened before my journey into sheet film photography, before I knew anything at all about LF, anything about painting or visual arts in general.

After that, a copy of this AA documentary brought to life more of Ansel and influenced my perception and direction with B&W photography.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n2CEeV-s3o

Then came the books, experimenting, study of many other photographers and painters. In the beginning much of one's efforts as a budding photographer is about learning the technical process and tinkering with new gear. Once learning the technical stuff has settled and more is learned about what makes an expressive image, the time comes when one needs to find their own direction and passion in the world of photography. Photography is very much a tool and means of expression.

I was indeed influenced by the work of Ansel Adams and many, many others along my photographic journey.... and it continues to this day.


Bernice

[Jim Cole]

I will third the viewing of "Clearing Winter Storm" as my defining AA moment. Back in 2010, after I'd been shooting LF for about 5 years, I visited the San Jose Museum of Art where they had a showing of Ansel's smaller, earlier prints. Working around the room several prints made me study them for a few minutes before moving on, and then I came upon the 5x7" print of CWS. I must say that it's the only time I've ever viewed a print that simply astounded me. So small, yet so perfect. I returned over and over to that print and spent maybe 20 minutes in complete surrender to its mastery.

I'm another LF user who has to credit Ansel's larger than life presence as a photographer and printer for getting me started in B&W. I saw several of his prints in a couple of the galleries in Carmel, but nothing touches that tiny print of "Clearing Winter Storm".

[Bruce Watson]

Happy Eleventy-first Ansel!

One of the first all-photography exhibits I ever saw was an Ansel Adams exhibit in Greenville SC of all places. I was amazed. I already enjoyed nature photography a great deal, but this, this was the real deal!

Took me almost 25 years to finally start doing photography correctly, with an LF camera. But without that exhibit in Greenville, I probably wouldn't have found my way there at all.

So thanks Ansel, I'm forever grateful.

[Heroique]

I returned over and over to [“Clearing Winter Storm”] and spent maybe 20 minutes in complete surrender to its mastery.

The word “surrender” caught my attention.

Often AA’s best landscapes recur to me – a surrender of sorts – when I see images by other landscape photographers.

“Beautiful,” I might think, “but it’s missing something important that AA’s best landscapes communicate to me.”

Hard to describe what the “missing” element is, but in a few words, I might say: drama, energy, movement, dynamism. Many of AA’s most famous landscapes communicate these things to me w/ ease, despite being no more than a stationary print on a wall, just like everyone else’s.

Those by others feel static, inert, lifeless – despite all the gorgeous scenery.

Let’s just say AA has conditioned how I see landscapes on the wall.

I recognize this isn’t necessarily fair to other landscapers, whose objectives may be different, very different. But I often wonder whether they substitute these other objectives – consciously or not – for ones they’ve sensed in AA and which are beyond their reach or talent. In the galleries, during my least charitable moments, I sense a “Kill the Father” aesthetic by unworthy sons, no matter how worthy their intentions. That is, no surrender.

In any case, as long as one can view AA prints, he will never really die.

[Bernice Loui]

Beyond the great works Ansel Adams created, he represented much more. He spoke out to preserve the natural world, used his landscape images to promote laws to create national preserves of nature, did much to help educate and inspire an entire generation of photographers, worked with Edward Land during the development process of "instant photographs" and with Kodak on various products and much more...

Ansel was quite an accomplished pianist..

He was much more than just a Photographer, Conservationist, Technical Advisor, Teacher, Pianist and... Ansel shared his gifts with humanity and helped many others along the way..


Bernice

[Bernice Loui]

Mount Ansel Adams, Lyell Fork:

http://www.anseladams.com/mount-ansel-adams-lyell-fork/


Bernice

[C. D. Keth]

...He spoke out to preserve the natural world, used his landscape images to promote laws to create national preserves of nature...

That is what I revere him for most now. As my taste has changed, I find that many of his photographs hit me a little cold while being technical masterpieces. His work in service of conservation did a lot of good things for the American west, though.