Why do Edward Weston' prints suck?

[Darin Boville]

I just finished traveling the country from coast to coast but only saw a small number of Edward Weston prints. There are three on display right now in Palo Alto.

All of them were extraordinarily dark. All of them looked like bad test prints, at best.

I've seen much better prints than these from Edward Weston. What's up? I wondered when I saw them whether he was going outside in the bright sunlight when judging print tonalities--and in the dark museum the prints then would look terrible. Or maybe the prints are degrading due to poor fixing?

Thoughts?

--Darin

[Jon Shiu]

I think that was just the style back in the day. If you look at contemporaries prints of the time, such as Imogen's, they have similar dark and soft tonality. If you see a Weston print he made for repro, you will see a brighter more contrastier print.

Jon

[Bill_1856]

Several years ago I made a special trip to Chicago to see an exhibit of EW's late images at AIC. The exhibit was so poorly (meaning dim) lit that they might as well have been cut from the pages of a poorly printed book. Maybe that's what you're seeing.
AIC is off my list forever.

[Steve Sherman]

THe prints could also be printed by one of his sons. Brett liked to print EW's work more contrasty than EW liked Told to me by Kim Weston, EW's grandson, EW made only 6 Pepper # 30 in his lifetime.
There is a code as to how the letters appear on the prints as to whether EW printed them or one of his son's printed the photograph, in which case their were deemed "Project Prints" I saw a Pepper # 30 which Brett printed and must say in was spectacular. Virtually impossible to get that luminosity with modern day materials !

Cheers!

[Kirk Gittings]

Troll much? :)

[neil poulsen]

One of the outstanding exhibits I've seen was of about 70 of Edward Weston prints at the Los Angeles Museum of Art. It was incredible. Prints did not come across to me as being too dark. Of course, a lot of that has to do with how its curated.

[richardman]

Where in Palo Alto are the EW prints?

[Sal Santamaura]

Why do Edward Weston' prints suck?They don't. Museum lighting generally sucks. Conservators apparently have the upper hand. And, typically, one finds standard acrylic glazing in frames. That means the dark hole illumination on prints can't compete with general lighting, so one is usually presented with a fantastic mirror image of oneself rather than being able to view the exhibition.

Weston printed dark intentionally to make his work compatible with bright viewing light. This makes things even worse in museums today. I've complained to the Getty, the Huntington and others. Nothing changes. So, if you're interested in seeing his prints as they were intended, your best bet is getting a copy of the Lodima Press book "Edward Weston - Life Work" and reviewing it under high illumination. :)

[Darin Boville]

Where in Palo Alto are the EW prints?

Cantor Art Museum at Stanford University in Palo Alto. On the second floor, toward the front of the building. There really dark one is by the entrance as you approach from the rear, to your right. The other two are together. To tell the fuller story, the one looks really, really dark. The glove shot looks both dark and lacking contrast. The other has a weird high contrast look. They all look terrible...

It can't be the dim museum light alone since other photos look fine in the same lighting. As I suggested he either printed these prints for much brighter light--like direct sunlight--or they are darkening as they age.

I've seen both Cole's versions and Weston's originals and in neither case do I recall them looking this bad. Quite the opposite.

--Darin

[Darin Boville]

Here's an example from the Denver Art Museum. On the left is a print by Laura Gilpin. Sort of a perfect "zone system" reference print. Darks with details, white that shine but detail where needed. The print glows. Next to it is one of the Westons I'm talking about. It is as dark as it looks. There is little to no detail in those blacks. This is very similar to the print at the Cantor and to the other one I saw (Can't think where right now.) Rather surprising. The close up shots are just crops from the first shot.

What worries me is that the backing board is so very yellow. Same with the other prints I saw.

I'm not on some anti-Weston agenda. Weston is one of my favorite photographers of all time. But what the heck is up with these prints?

--Darin

119187119188119189

[Michael Clark]

That explains the photographs by Ansel Adams last month displayed at the Getty, it was so dark I thought my eyes were going bad. But just this week went back to the Getty to see Minor White's exhibit and the lighting seemed fine.
They don't. Museum lighting generally sucks. Conservators apparently have the upper hand. And, typically, one finds standard acrylic glazing in frames. That means the dark hole illumination on prints can't compete with general lighting, so one is usually presented with a fantastic mirror image of oneself rather than being able to view the exhibition.

Weston printed dark intentionally to make his work compatible with bright viewing light. This makes things even worse in museums today. I've complained to the Getty, the Huntington and others. Nothing changes. So, if you're interested in seeing his prints as they were intended, your best bet is getting a copy of the Lodima Press book "Edward Weston - Life Work" and reviewing it under high illumination. :)

[Greg Miller]

Here's an example from the Denver Art Museum. On the left is a print by Laura Gilpin. Sort of a perfect "zone system" reference print. Darks with details, white that shine but detail where needed. The print glows. Next to it is one of the Westons I'm talking about. It is as dark as it looks. There is little to no detail in those blacks. This is very similar to the print at the Cantor and to the other one I saw (Can't think where right now.) Rather surprising. The close up shots are just crops from the first shot.

What worries me is that the backing board is so very yellow. Same with the other prints I saw.

I'm not on some anti-Weston agenda. Weston is one of my favorite photographers of all time. But what the heck is up with these prints?

--Darin

119187119188119189

Those photos are very hard to make any conclusions from. I pulled the 1st photo into Photoshop and measured tones. The RGB values for the mat of the Weston print are a full 50 points darker than the Gilpin - that's at least a 2 stop difference in lighting on the 2 prints.. Here's a version where I equalized the RGB values for the mats on their respective right sides. It's pretty clear from the photo that the Gilpin print has more direct light falling upon it.

119190

[Darin Boville]

Those photos are very hard to make any conclusions from. I pulled the 1st photo into Photoshop and measured tones. The RGB values for the mat of the Weston print are a full 50 points darker than the Gilpin - that's at least a 2 stop difference in lighting on the 2 prints.. Here's a version where I equalized the RGB values for the mats on their respective right sides. It's pretty clear from the photo that the Gilpin print has more direct light falling upon it.

119190

Greg,

You surely aren't telling me it was a difference in lighting of the print...I was *there*!!! The photo is a fair representation of what it looked like...the tonalities of the prints are nowhere near each other. The Weston was really, really dark.

--Darin

[Greg Miller]

Greg,

You surely aren't telling me it was a difference in lighting of the print...I was *there*!!! The photo is a fair representation of what it looked like...the tonalities of the prints are nowhere near each other. The Weston was really, really dark.

--Darin

What I said was that is is hard to draw any conclusions given the lighting differential.

[Merg Ross]

As I suggested he either printed these prints for much brighter light--like direct sunlight--or they are darkening as they age.


--Darin

Simple answer. At Wildcat, he walked twenty paces from the darkroom to view the wet print under the west facing skylight. Those blacks had depth, and it was under the skylight that he showed his prints and sold his prints. He did not anticipate them being exhibited in the present day caves where there is more interest in preserving prints than exhibiting them.

Cole was aware of this emerging trend, and his prints from EW negatives were lighter and with a bit more contrast.

[Darin Boville]

Simple answer. At Wildcat, he walked twenty paces from the darkroom to view the wet print under the west facing skylight. Those blacks had depth, and it was under the skylight that he showed his prints and sold his prints. He did not anticipate them being exhibited in the present day caves where there is more interest in preserving prints than exhibiting them.

Cole was aware of this emerging trend, and his prints from EW negatives were lighter and with a bit more contrast.

Ahhh, that is what I suspected. Did he show them with direct sunlight hitting the print, do you recall? That would certainly be enough to transform the prints that I saw.

He must have changed his mind at some point about viewing them under such bright conditions since I've seen prints from EW that looked fine (fine enough) on museum walls with the dim lighting.

Sadly, the ones I saw looked just terrible. My daughters know that I'm an Ed Weston fan and when I showed them the prints (slightly embarrassed) they sort of just smiled politely. :(

--Darin

[Greg Miller]

So you put a print intended to be lit by skylight, AND put it in a dim museum next to another print with 4x as much light, and its going to look pretty muddy. I sure wouldn't want one of my prints judged that way.

[Richard Johnson]

In my early days as a photographer I visited Carmel and saw a dark Weston sunlit in the window of the Weston Gallery... and it was the most beautiful print I have ever seen, black on blacks that sank into each other for miles.

Every museum display of Weston prints makes you wonder what the fuss was about?

[Darin Boville]

Simple answer. At Wildcat, he walked twenty paces from the darkroom to view the wet print under the west facing skylight. Those blacks had depth, and it was under the skylight that he showed his prints and sold his prints. He did not anticipate them being exhibited in the present day caves where there is more interest in preserving prints than exhibiting them.

Cole was aware of this emerging trend, and his prints from EW negatives were lighter and with a bit more contrast.

A bit of trivia. I was at a museum with a small but excellent show of Dürer prints. Some who knows but who shall go unnamed confided to me that several of the prints were replicas not real prints. The eal prints were too fragile (and maybe too valuable) to be put on exhibit.

Maybe that is the solution here. You sure could make a Weston print that looked great in dim lighting with a proper scan. Heck, put both on display next to each other--see the real object and also see how it is supposed to look...

--Darin

[richardman]

Darin, thanks. I will check out these muddy EW prints in person :-)

[Merg Ross]

Ahhh, that is what I suspected. Did he show them with direct sunlight hitting the print, do you recall? That would certainly be enough to transform the prints that I saw.

--Darin

Do I recall? Darin, as if yesterday. I always sat on one of his barstools, being young and needing elevation. Edward had a little tripod easel that he would place the prints on under the skylight. However, there was also additional illumination from the glass doors that faced the ocean, and depending on the time of year provided sunlight or light from the bright coastal overcast --- the type you are familiar with!

I'm not sure he changed his mind about viewing conditions --- he was only human, not a machine, and prints from the same negative sometimes varied in contrast and brightness.

[jnantz]

i was at the mfa in boston a while back and their photography collection was the whos who
but the quality of the images wasnt what i would have expected from the creme de la creme ..
i overheard peoples conversations who were gazing and they were confused why these images were even there ...

i suppose different museums have different quality prints and there is always a lot of hype
surrounding some of these images ...
i looked at it a bit differently and was impressed because some of the photographs were the origins of whatever
style was being representative, and love of a style has to do with taste ...
like going to a burmese resturant and disliking burmese food, the food is good, but not bart of ones pallet ...

[Ben Calwell]

One person's "too dark," might be another's "just right."

[Kirk Gittings]

So you put a print intended to be lit by skylight, AND put it in a dim museum next to another print with 4x as much light, and its going to look pretty muddy. I sure wouldn't want one of my prints judged that way.

Unfortunately once a print leaves ones possession it has a life of its own in terms of care, presentation and meaning. Some of the framing/matting jobs I have seen on my prints left me utterly flabbergasted.

[Drew Wiley]

There was a dealer/gallery across the street for awhile that inherited a bunch of Weston's "seconds" from a relative in the same neighborhood, who had collected
these way back when, himself a well-known photographer in these parts. They were the real deal, and he managed to get 5K to 7K apiece for a few of them, but
they were indeed rather dark, so-so subjects, and not the kind of thing that would get anyone famous. EW was a superb printer. But I don't don't know of anyone ever who doesn't have to weed out their "work prints" from time to time. All these guys made plenty of bad prints. Some threw them away, some stored them off
somewhere, and maybe some got sold reasonably to friends who couldn't afford the good ones, or were outright gifts. I don't know. I've done the same kind of thing with so-so prints I didn't consider real "keepers".

[Kirk Gittings]

Some years ago there was a small Strand exhibit at the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe. It was so dimly lit at first the prints seemed darkly printed but once your eyes adjusted they still looked darkish. That was the dimest lit exhibit I had ever seen. I asked a guard about it and he said that the lending institution had dictated the lighting level as a condition of the loan.

[Kevin Crisp]

I think I stumbled upon the same display in Los Angeles Neil did. I was not a LF photographer at the time, I did not know who Edward Weston was, and I had two hours to kill between appointments and I ended up following a line of people into the gallery. The prints were very well illuminated and looked gorgeous. As I recall they had one of his cameras (a universal, maybe) under glass as well. They looked nothing like prints I've seen in dark places (Getty, Huntington Library, LA Library, etc.) since then.

[BrianShaw]

That explains the photographs by Ansel Adams last month displayed at the Getty, it was so dark I thought my eyes were going bad. ...

I don't know how I missed that, especially considering that I pass by Getty twice a day. :o

But I had the same reaction many years ago when I saw an exhibit of AA prints "over the years" at the FOP gallery in SF. The lighting was dim but the difference between the same neg printed at various times was astounding . The early ones were almost all printed very very dark. Too dark for my liking. But what do I know - especially considering that i agree with the statement in post #23. And back them ny eyes were really good.

[Michael Mutmansky]

Some years ago there was a small Strand exhibit at the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe. It was so dimly lit at first the prints seemed darkly printed but once your eyes adjusted they still looked darkish. That was the dimest lit exhibit I had ever seen. I asked a guard about it and he said that the lending institution had dictated the lighting level as a condition of the loan.

This happens a lot with travelling exhibits... the lending institution is willing to share, but not if the prints are going to be destroyed in the process. Most conservators understand the role of light and especially short wavelength light (UV) has on image fading and damage. They therefore will often place illuminance and total exposure (illuminance x duration) limits on the pieces. This leads to dimly lighted exhibits.


---Michael

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh. Even Babe Ruth probably struck out more times than he hit a home run. The average person just remembers the positive side of the story. Cole Weston pretty
much standardized the printing of only very select negatives specifically for sale. So his prints are likely to be even more consistent than the vintage ones by his
father. Otherwise, I have seen the gamut one way or another. EW was not unique in that respect. There seems to have been a trend at one point in printing dark.
Merg would know better than me if my hunch is right. But lots of those more brooding images certainly don't come across well in dim display light.

[paulr]

All of them looked like bad test prints, at best.

They actually may have been.

Back then, people weren't always as self-consious about their legacies, and didn't always rip up their rejects. I'd heard from a curator at the Colorado Historical Society that Weston died with boxes of test prints and scrapbook-quality rejects under his bed ... and that these were quickly sold as if they were finished work.

The conversation came up when I saw a few god-awful prints of his, hanging next to some stunning ones.

All that stuff about the lighting is also a possibility.

[Mark Sawyer]

If I ever have a big museum exhibition, I'm going to insist the work be shown in complete darkness to preserve the prints...

[TXFZ1]

If I ever have a big museum exhibition, I'm going to insist the work be shown in complete darkness to preserve the prints...

As the person nears the piece, Tinkerbell waves her wand and sparkly bits sprinkle down, enlightening the viewer. Just like the opening credits to the Walt's castle every Sunday night. I can see that in the contract.

David

[tgtaylor]

Could it be in the processing? The Weston's were known to wash some of their prints in Wildcat creek and the water flowing in that creek isn't from Hetch Hetchy. Lord only knows what was in that wash water.

Thomas

[richardman]

Could it be in the processing? The Weston's were known to wash some of their prints in Wildcat creek and the water flowing in that creek isn't from Hetch Hetchy. Lord only knows what was in that wash water.

Thomas

Carmel water back in the Days?! How dirty can it be?

[Vaughn]

EW's Photo Shop did not have any buttons...

[Mark Sampson]

I doubt that print washing was an issue. Variations in prints (perhaps made at different times by different people) x dim lighting = variable results on the museum wall.
I've seen quite a few Westons, mostly at GEH, and some prints made by Cole on sale at galleries in NYC. Few, if any, of those were too dark, and none of them 'sucked'.
There's a long discussion about varying print qualities, as in Edward's vs. Brett's printing of the same negative, in the introduction of the book "Weston's Westons: California and the West", with illustrations. Worth checking out.

[mdarnton]

I have maybe never seen a real Weston print, not being a big fan, but every time I go look at photos at the Art Institute, I try to learn something about them, not tear them apart--try to figure out what the photog was trying to get at with the print. For instance, I quickly saw that many or most of the prints in the Steichen show have large areas of blank black shadows (Karsh does that, too). That's not my particular style, but after looking at the photos, I certainly did understand what Steichen was up to there, began to appreciate it, and wondered how I could bring more of that into my own work. I have seen many prints I'd call overall "dark" but when I got into it more deeply I started to get the point.

Every zone equally represented with nice open shadows is nice if you work for a newspaper with crummy reproduction, but why then believe that every print needs to fit that pattern? Likewise for any other printing style. Perhaps the problem here is not Weston, Steichen, and Karsh, but that photography in general has gotten routed onto one track as to what's acceptable tonality? That's not a statement--it's genuinely a question!

This certainly has happened in my major field--violins. On old recordings, the violinists all sound very different; now everyone latches onto the "best" accepted version of a piece because everyone who's serious can get all the CDs and play them next to each other. An individual sound and style, as every player had 100 years ago, is now considered eccentric and undesirable. Quality in playing is often evaluated not by expression, but by lack of mistakes. This is NOT a gain in my opinion.

[Richard Johnson]

It would be fun to take one of those 200 Lumen flashlights to a muddy, dim museum sometime....

[Michael Alpert]

I think what you are seeing is a deteriorated print. The backing board is obviously acidic, which has darkened the print paper and with it the highlights of the image. (I wonder why the museum is showing such a large area of the backing.) I've seen several fine shows of EW's work. The prints all have some evidence of the "patina of time." But there is also a lovely handmade quality to the printing. It's not perfect, but it's art, you know, made by a person. Based on your photograph, I would say that the prints you saw are obviously not what EW intended and are not characteristic of his work.

[Greg Y]

+1 :-)

[Bill Burk]

I got to see the show in Monterey a while back and while the prints were inconsistent, I enjoyed every one.

So what if some of the early prints are matted on rotting board. I spent more time looking at the older work, it helped me connect more closely to him.

I can appreciate an occasional dark print, for on close examination (at least in that Monterey museum I could) you can see the details are there...

Do any of you joke about your "dark" period? I've heard the phrase though I haven't gone through that myself... but there are times when I want to print down more just to see how low I can go.

[r_a_feldman]

If I ever have a big museum exhibition, I'm going to insist the work be shown in complete darkness to preserve the prints...

I curated an exhibit of "primitive art" at the Field Museum in Chicago about 25 years ago. The conservator insisted of a fairly low light level, which resulted in one review of the exhibit being titled "Night comes to the Field Museum." :)

Bob

[Darin Boville]

So we've largely solved the Weston Mystery (probably just dark prints due to viewing in sunlight, might be deteriorating prints,might be test prints sold as legit prints)...

Sooooo.... wouldn't using LED light (no UV) allow us to being up the light levels without causing curatorial nightmares? I would much prefer a brighter light with a not quite right color temp than a correctly colored bulb set so low you can't see the work...

--Darin

[Bill Burk]

How about this... Dim light for direct viewing... But an electronic viewing system... Like a webcam trained on the print, connected to a monitor. Give the viewer a couple big knobs which a user can twiddle to adjust the brightness and contrast at whim to see what the print might look like in more light.

[mdarnton]

I went to a show at the Met in NYC and there was one early print from the very dawn of photography (a Fox-Talbot, maybe) that had a black velvet curtain over it. To see the print, you lifted the curtain. That way the print was exposed to any light only when someone was looking at it. It was a clever way to drastically reduce exposure, since the huge bulk of the time no one was even in the room, but not practical for a big show.

[Sal Santamaura]

...wouldn't using LED light (no UV) allow us to being up the light levels without causing curatorial nightmares?...No. They're conservatorial, not curatorial, nightmares. The conservators will tell you that "lumens is lumens." No big difference between UV and visible for gelatin silver prints. They want it dark.

[Sal Santamaura]

How about this... Dim light for direct viewing... But an electronic viewing system... Like a webcam trained on the print, connected to a monitor. Give the viewer a couple big knobs which a user can twiddle to adjust the brightness and contrast at whim to see what the print might look like in more light.Why bother? Just put it on line and let everyone fiddle with the image at home, saving travel and even the minimal light exposure an original receives in the dim museum setting you describe.

[Peter De Smidt]

Awhile ago I saw an Ansel Adams exhibit. It was very poorly lit. What's the point of that? Deterioration of prints is bad, as people won't be able to enjoy them in the future, sure, but bad lighting is bad because no one will enjoy the pictures now or in the future, as the pressures for conservation will no doubt only increase. Why accomplish now what deterioration might do many years from now? Do silver gelatin prints fade anyway? Show the prints as they were meant to be seen. If people are so worried about them, then have copies made ala Brook's Jensen's editions made with digital negatives on silver gelatin paper. I have a set of Wynn Bullock's images made this way. They are terrific. I'd rather look at those in the proper light than an actual Bullock print in poor light.

[Sal Santamaura]

...had a black velvet curtain over it. To see the print, you lifted the curtain. That way the print was exposed to any light only when someone was looking at it...I've seen this approach used. The problem with it is that when one lifts the cloth, the print is still illuminated by light far too dim for appreciating it.

[Peter Spangenberg]

I prefer to look at E. Weston prints in galleries instead of museums because of the light and the ability to hold them. I will say the show I saw in the Akron Museum a couple of years ago (drawn entirely from the Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg collection), even though dimly lit, had LOTS of luminous prints. Here's a Pt/Pd one I saw recently in SF that was a real stunner: http://www.scottnicholsgallery.com/artists/edward-weston/portraits/ew_portrait_of_a_male_nude_1922/

[Michael Alpert]

I think we're half-blind, silly old guys. We don't own the prints in museums, and we know absolutely nothing about curatorial responsibility. I realize that it's a pleasure to complain, but we all have amazing access to beautiful, rare works of art without having to pay much of anything to visit them. Yes, the lighting is sometimes dim; but, dear friends, let's get over it.

[Les Rudnick]

I would suggest that if anyone has the opportunity to visit NYC to see the AIPAD show (Association of International Photography Art Dealers) that it will be a great experience. You will have the chance to see a wide variety of vintage prints in much better than museum lighting. Some are framed but many are matted and in plastic sleeves or portfolio boxes that can be viewed individually. You will see more photography in a day or two than traveling to view prints at museums under poor lighting. The show is at the Park Avenue Armory each year in April.

[Sal Santamaura]

I think we're half-blind, silly old guys...Please speak for yourself. My spectacle-corrected vision, including dark-adaptation, is as good as it was when I was 21, even if the transition from blazing southern California sunlight to museum darkness takes about 12 minutes longer than it did then. I spend far longer than that at an exhibit before looking critically at hung prints.


...we know absolutely nothing about curatorial responsibility...Again, please speak for yourself. I know plenty about curatorial and conservatorial responsibilities. Last year my wife completed a George Washington University program in museum collections management and care. I followed along with her through all the courses. There wasn't much I didn't already know from previous research, but it validated my prior knowledge and added a few tidbits.


...Yes, the lighting is sometimes dim; but, dear friends, let's get over it.Let's not. Instead, let's inform the museums that we won't attend or support them if they persist in hanging useless exhibitions. Perhaps that would motivate them to strike a better balance between their conservators' preference for never taking anything out of vaults and Weston's predilection for going dark enough so his prints look best in very bright daylight. He wasn't technically perfect by any means, the highly acidic mats he mounted them on being one shortcoming. But deep-space blackness is incompatible with most others' work too.

[Darin Boville]

I just got back from the deYoung's Modernism show--all paintings. Not a terribly exciting show except for the highly interesting Barnett Newman mini-show inside of it--literally inside of it--the modernism show wraps around it both figuratively and in the gallery layout.

In any event, in looking at some of the word I couldn't help but think that the paintings would look better in slightly brighter light. They were too dull, lacking contrast in the gallery even after eyes adjusted.

Btw, the deYoung had a show called the "Gay Essay" on display as well--documentary work by Anthony Friedkin on some of the more flamboyant gay scenes in LA and San Francisco in the hippie days. Good but not great photography. Probably more interesting as historical documents than as photography, per se.

--Darin

[Peter De Smidt]

Well said, Sal.

[Bill_1856]

Bravo, Sal!

[chris_4622]

I went to a show at the Met in NYC and there was one early print from the very dawn of photography (a Fox-Talbot, maybe) that had a black velvet curtain over it. To see the print, you lifted the curtain. That way the print was exposed to any light only when someone was looking at it. It was a clever way to drastically reduce exposure, since the huge bulk of the time no one was even in the room, but not practical for a big show.

I saw the same presentation with one of his print at the AI.

[MDR]

Watercolours and early photographs are easily damaged by wrong light, some of the older museums lights emit enough UV to use as printing lights for alt-processes, I kid you not, and this is one of the reasons that lenders are so extreme in their demand for low light, not every museum uses the newest and best UV-free lights unfortunately that is. I usually wait 10 minutes to adjust my eyes to the darkness, if I come from a brighter exhibition this usually does the trick. I also like darker prints they seem to reveal their content much slower but also much more intensive. I once stared several minutes at a seemingly dark print and boy was there a lot of detail but it took time to reveal itself.

[mdarnton]

Everyone's a critic. Everyone thinks the world should revolve around them and their tastes and needs. No news here. Like Michael Alpert, I'm grateful for the opportunities I've been given and try not to do a lot of whining.

[Sal Santamaura]

...Everyone thinks the world should revolve around them and their tastes and needs...I can't and don't speak for "everyone." However, my comments and opinions in this thread are based on the human vision physiology of everyone. For a good summary of that, see pages four through six here:


http://ctein.com/PostExposure2ndIllustrated.pdf

The most relevant portion reads:


"At best we can distinguish tonal differences as small as 0.006 density units (d.u.), about 1.5%. At the dark end of the scale we may need a brightness change of up to 0.15 d.u. (40%) to see any difference."


This is why restricting display light levels the way museums have been means visitors simply can't see the works. Especially when exacerbated by highly reflective glazing.


...try not to do a lot of whining.Pointing out facts is not whining. Silent acceptance only reinforces the institutions' apparent belief that they're doing the right thing. They aren't. Balance is needed.

[Bill_1856]

Several years ago I went to the "Legends" EW exhibit at the Naples (FL) museum.
They had motion detectors in the exhibition rooms, which turned out the lights completely when there was no one there. As soon as anyone stepped into the exhibition area the lights came on and it was quite good.

[mdarnton]

Pointing out facts is not whining. Silent acceptance only reinforces the institutions' apparent belief that they're doing the right thing. They aren't. Balance is needed.

Leaving aside the question (is it REALLY a question in your mind!?) whether humans are basically selfish . . . .
I suspect that the institutions have already decided they are as balanced as they care to be. True conservation would demand not showing the work at all.

[Sal Santamaura]

...Pointing out facts is not whining. Silent acceptance only reinforces the institutions' apparent belief that they're doing the right thing. They aren't. Balance is needed.


Leaving aside the question (is it REALLY a question in your mind!?) whether humans are basically selfish...It is neither a question in my mind nor relevant to this discussion.


...I suspect that the institutions have already decided they are as balanced as they care to be. True conservation would demand not showing the work at all.This is analogous to the issue of National Park Service (NPS) Parks and Wilderness Areas. With the exception of some older units that contain far too many concessions/services, and therefore resemble theme parks, most National Parks strike a balance between preservation and visitor enjoyment. Wilderness areas restrict most of the human population from visiting by not providing motorized vehicle access or human services. Please don't misinterpret; I'm all in favor of Wilderness Areas, but prefer that most NPS units be well-balanced Parks.

The museum industry has, in my opinion, deferred too much to its conservators' positions. For the most part, composed as it is of non-profit and/or public entities, it must either bow to visitor pressure or risk extinction. Extinction would definitely result in not showing the work at all, a situation that would make those then-unemployed conservators ecstatic. :) If it has already decided it is as balanced as it cares to be, sufficient donor/visitor opposition could reverse that decision. I think such opposition with respect to modern gelatin silver prints, which by the way are not particularly susceptible to UV light, is warranted. Whether anyone but me and a few others posting in this thread care enough to complain is another matter.

[Greg Miller]

To add to Sal's comments, the museums also need to consider the visitor's experience, and what value is there in creating an exhibit that present s the prints in a suboptimal manner. How well did a museum accomplish their mission if a Darin left with the impression that Weston's prints suck. I would presume that Darin is much more highly educated regarding photographic prints than the typical museum visitor. So if Darin left with that imprsesion, what impression does the typical visitor leave with, and what value did the exhibition actually provide?

[mdarnton]

The average museum goer, without Darin's limitations, probably enjoyed the exhibit a lot, actually---for all the "wrong" reasons, apparently: the pictures satisfy them, and they aren't looking at all the technical imperfections, only the photography. Shame on them for being so crude as to only appreciate what the photographer intended to do, rather than what Darin thought he and the museum should be doing. :-)

[Greg Miller]

The average museum goer, without Darin's limitations, probably enjoyed the exhibit a lot, actually---for all the "wrong" reasons, apparently: the pictures satisfy them, and they aren't looking at all the technical imperfections, only the photography. Shame on them for being so crude as to only appreciate what the photographer intended to do, rather than what Darin thought he and the museum should be doing. :-)

If they viewed the prints in lighting conditions entirely different than the photographer intended (and in the recess obliterating shadowndetIl), then their enjoyment was purely accidental. Is that really what a museum should strive for?

[Merg Ross]

I am reminded of the words of Dody Weston Thompson on the subject of Edward Weston prints. Dody was Edward's apprentice and also my dear friend for six decades. Of the day she first met Edward at his studio in 1948, she wrote the following:

"...he pulled up a chair for me under the skylight and showed me fifty photographs one by one on a small easel. I have never forgotten the astonishing effect of that first viewing. In that brilliant, pouring light, with no dulling, reflective glass to obscure them, those images shone with mysterious inner light, arousing a sensuous response to their print quality alone; the blacks seemed rich as oil or deep as velvet, a thousand greys gleamed out--soft pewters, glinting silvers--and at the upper end of the scale were whipped cream, pearls, and sunlight." Dody Weston Thompson, 1970

[Darin Boville]

The average museum goer, without Darin's limitations, probably enjoyed the exhibit a lot, actually---for all the "wrong" reasons, apparently: the pictures satisfy them, and they aren't looking at all the technical imperfections, only the photography. Shame on them for being so crude as to only appreciate what the photographer intended to do, rather than what Darin thought he and the museum should be doing. :-)

Quite the contrary. As I pointed out earlier, I tried to "show off" a Weston print to my teen-age daughters--who have seen in person more art and more photography at this point than most people will see their entire lives--and they were unimpressed. Didn't see what was so special about Weston at all. Not surprising since it was so har to see...

Oh well.

--Darin

[Mark Sawyer]

Quite the contrary. As I pointed out earlier, I tried to "show off" a Weston print to my teen-age daughters--who have seen in person more art and more photography at this point than most people will see their entire lives--and they were unimpressed. Didn't see what was so special about Weston at all. Not surprising since it was so hard to see...

Oh well.

--Darin

Maybe next you can take them to a Rolling Stones concert, and have them play the music really, really quiet...

[Darin Boville]

Maybe next you can take them to a Rolling Stones concert, and have them play the music really, really quiet...

....and they would be equally unimpressed, wondering again what all the fuss was about. ("No, really, kids. Imagine the music much louder!")

--Darin

[Michael Alpert]

When museums accept very expensive rare prints from donors, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the integrity of those prints. Exhibition lighting is often limited in accordance with the stipulations of the gift.

After making arrangements in advance, I have visited study-rooms at several major museums to see important and fragile works. I suggest that anyone with a serious interest in a great photographer's work make similar arrangements. In my experience, almost all curators have been very warm, generous people who want to both protect and share work, not hide it.

[John Jarosz]

He did not anticipate them being exhibited in the present day caves where there is more interest in preserving prints than exhibiting them.

This subject needs to get far more attention then it receives. There is no point to displaying a print if the illumination is too low to appreciate the print. That is what curators and conservators do not understand. Each one tries to protect his/her own turf. It's politics.

The general public probably doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. I've said for a long time that if the prints are too valuable to display, then the technology exists to make exact copies and display those.

The French & Spanish caves are currently embroiled in a controversy about whether to allow tourists inside to observe the Paleolithic paintings after being closed for many years (tourists have the option to view a duplicate cave nearby). Apparently the local politicians and business interests feel their tourist industry would be better served by allowing even a small amount of people into the actual caves even if it results in mold starting to grow again like it did prior to the caves' closure.

My point is that painters and photographers probably wouldn't notice the difference between copies made by qualified technicians and the real image. Apparently the issue is not of being able to convey the nuances of the image, but rather being able to say that one saw the actual historic image.

So it comes down to the age old contest between the "image" and the concept of "the image as an object".

[Kirk Gittings]

Quite the contrary. As I pointed out earlier, I tried to "show off" a Weston print to my teen-age daughters--who have seen in person more art and more photography at this point than most people will see their entire lives--and they were unimpressed. Didn't see what was so special about Weston at all. Not surprising since it was so har to see...

Oh well.

--Darin

Probably had little to do with illumination. For a maybe a couple of years Andrew Smith had a huge retrospective of AA in his gallery in SF. http://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/exhibitions/anseladams/gems_of_new_mexico/index.html I took every class I had to that show and by and large they were utterly unimpressed. They always beelined to more contemporary "flashy" work.

[Sal Santamaura]

This subject has been kicked around here for a long time. Here's a thread I started about it almost 11 years ago:


http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?8158-Weston-at-The-Huntington

[Jim Jones]

I can't and don't speak for "everyone." However, my comments and opinions in this thread are based on the human vision physiology of everyone. For a good summary of that, see pages four through six here:


http://ctein.com/PostExposure2ndIllustrated.pdf

The most relevant portion reads:


"At best we can distinguish tonal differences as small as 0.006 density units (d.u.), about 1.5%. At the dark end of the scale we may need a brightness change of up to 0.15 d.u. (40%) to see any difference."


This is why restricting display light levels the way museums have been means visitors simply can't see the works. Especially when exacerbated by highly reflective glazing.

Pointing out facts is not whining. Silent acceptance only reinforces the institutions' apparent belief that they're doing the right thing. They aren't. Balance is needed.

I wonder... When I worked in graphic arts almost 20 years ago, we had step wedges with steps of 1% at the high and low end. The sharp-edge jump of 1% was visible. Images that were created with a 100-step range sometimes showed distracting demarcations between tones. When an edge that separated 1% tones was blurred, those demarcations disappeared.

Sometimes scientific theory, lab tests, and practical work yield disparate results.

[Bill Burk]

Nice observations, Sal!

There is a practical benefit to seeing vintage prints from the masters...

By definition, when they were younger, they were less experienced printers...

When I set goals for myself, I strive to achieve their "vintage" quality... and it keeps me from becoming discouraged.

[Bill Burk]

Now there could be electronic means to adjust the image a viewer "sees" - a webcam and display with touchscreen brightness/contrast adjustments for you to play with.

I have no problem "seeing" the prints in dim light, they came to life for me in Monterey... There the lighting ramped up when you were in the room and dimmed down when you left.

But if technology can improve the viewing experience without degrading the print... curators could show how the print might have been "intended" to be viewed.

[dsphotog]

When museums accept very expensive rare prints from donors, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the integrity of those prints. Exhibition lighting is often limited in accordance with the stipulations of the gift.

After making arrangements in advance, I have visited study-rooms at several major museums to see important and fragile works. I suggest that anyone with a serious interest in a great photographer's work make similar arrangements. In my experience, almost all curators have been very warm, generous people who want to both protect and share work, not hide it.

The Oakland Museum has a room dedicated to the F64 photographers, nice lighting, some prints are accessable in drawers (under plexiglas).

[Andrew Plume]

Probably had little to do with illumination. For a maybe a couple of years Andrew Smith had a huge retrospective of AA in his gallery in SF. http://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/exhibitions/anseladams/gems_of_new_mexico/index.html I took every class I had to that show and by and large they were utterly unimpressed. They always beelined to more contemporary "flashy" work.

thanks for posting the link

any idea what they particularly disliked?............although I'm seeing considerable signs of 'the f64 style', I'm also clearly seeing the effects of the light and some terrific printing

regards, andrew

[evan clarke]

I've been lucky enough to see 5 AA shows in the last 7 years. The most recent was in OshKosh Wi and was lit so dimly that you couldn't see them. The orevious show was at the Lake County Il Forest Preserve Gallery. Their Idea was to light Dramatically with a tiny spot of bright light in the middle. The only good one I saw was at the Snite Museum ant Notre Dame. The collection was 40 prints which are owned by AAs daughter and were lit for great full range viewing..

[Kirk Gittings]

thanks for posting the link

any idea what they particularly disliked?............although I'm seeing considerable signs of 'the f64 style', I'm also clearly seeing the effects of the light and some terrific printing

regards, andrew

I don't think they disliked it. I think they were indifferent to it. This generation of kids are drawn to tasty tidbits that can be quickly consumed and then move on. Images are like fast food. They are not savored or contemplated.

[mdarnton]

There are quite a few of us old guys that think St Ansel's stuff is empty calories. Perhaps, not having the indoctrination, the kids are smarter than you think.

[Sal Santamaura]

There are quite a few of us old guys that think St Ansel's stuff is empty calories. Perhaps, not having the indoctrination, the kids are smarter than you think.Or perhaps, as with all "art," there are ultimately no more substantive conclusions one can reach than "I like it" or "I don't like it." Nature and nurture bring each individual to one of those conclusions at a given point in time. I don't think age has any direct bearing on it, other than the "nurture" that's gone on during one's formative years. Staying somewhat on topic, recall Edward Weston's approach to providing feedback when presented with others' prints. During a careful review, he'd separate them into two piles, pointing to one and saying "these I like." :D

Count me as an old guy who thinks Adams was an excellent technician with a good eye who lived during a period when the places he photographed were, although not pristine, far less polluted by humans and their detritus than they are today. I like it.

[Mark Sawyer]

I don't think they disliked it. I think they were indifferent to it. This generation of kids are drawn to tasty tidbits that can be quickly consumed and then move on. Images are like fast food. They are not savored or contemplated.

Ahh, the emerging appetites of a generation being raised on super-saturated HDI, the Red-Bull-and-Flaming-Hot-Cheetos of the photography world...

[ScottPhotoCo]

I don't think they disliked it. I think they were indifferent to it. This generation of kids are drawn to tasty tidbits that can be quickly consumed and then move on. Images are like fast food. They are not savored or contemplated.

Well said.

[Andrew Plume]

I don't think they disliked it. I think they were indifferent to it. This generation of kids are drawn to tasty tidbits that can be quickly consumed and then move on. Images are like fast food. They are not savored or contemplated.

thank you Kirk

andrew

[Darin Boville]

I don't think they disliked it. I think they were indifferent to it. This generation of kids are drawn to tasty tidbits that can be quickly consumed and then move on. Images are like fast food. They are not savored or contemplated.

I've never met your students but this certainly doesn't apply to *my* kids. I raised them , after all. :)

But do I really expect them to see or feel anything when even I can't see the print? When even I don't feel *anything* when looking at the work by one of my favorite photographers?

--Darin

[Kirk Gittings]

There are quite a few of us old guys that think St Ansel's stuff is empty calories. Perhaps, not having the indoctrination, the kids are smarter than you think.

I wish that were true. But if you have ever been to the AS gallery you know that there is always a diverse collection of images up besides the main show. Their reaction was the same to Steigletz, Steichen, Westons, Wynn Bullock etc. AAMOF they had much more enthusiasm for the work at The Hanna-Barbera cartoon gallery up the street.

[Bernice Loui]

Part of this is learning to speak the "language" of images and art in general. This required time, commitment, work and great passion for achievement.

So many things today are driven by instant gratification and instant results.

Yesterday, at a friend's birthday party taking a few snaps with a digital camera there was a twenty something with a digital camera zipping away frame after frame of the same image.. about 10-20 frames later, instant preview, dumping most of those images and saving maybe very few. This appears to be what digital image making has become.

Ad images are also designed to catch the eye for just that moment long enough to transfer some product or idea or what ever to the observer and stick in their mind.. Quite different than images that have much to say if the viewer takes the time to "take it in".


Lighting in museums are often designed for conservation, not for optimum viewing. I have seen those EW images at Cantor, they are not illuminated for viewing, the lighting is designed for conservation and will look dark... unless the viewer understands why this is done.


Bernice



I don't think they disliked it. I think they were indifferent to it. This generation of kids are drawn to tasty tidbits that can be quickly consumed and then move on. Images are like fast food. They are not savored or contemplated.

[Bill_1856]

It hasn't been mentioned here, but his late prints (from 1935) may have been made on less yummy papers, as the depression dragged on and WW2 came on-line, and silver content was decreased.
I'm not sure that he ever adapted his negatives to the change.

[Sal Santamaura]

...they are not illuminated for viewing, the lighting is designed for conservation and will look dark... unless the viewer understands why this is done...If they are not illuminated for viewing, they'll look dark whether the viewer understands why that light level was chosen or not. :)

[Drew Wiley]

They hand out appropriate viewing glasses for 3D movies. Maybe that should hand out night vision goggles in the museums.

[N Dhananjay]

There are a number of issues here that are worth examining for our own work.

1) The light by which a print is viewed: There seems to be a small range over about 3-4 stops that provides the optimal lighting - if I am remembering correctly, this is documented in 'The Measure of Man and Woman: Human Factors in Design" - I think the Woodhouse and Lambrecht tome also refers to this. I think the consensus here (which I concur with) is that typical gallery lighting is far below this optimum level.

2) The match between the light by which a print is evaluated and the light by which a print is viewed: This is quite important. As light gets darker, the shadows will get murkier and murkier. As light gets brighter, subtle highlights will tend to 'bleach' out. The problem appears to be when the print is evaluated by one lighting condition but viewed in another, as in this case. It sounds as though Weston intended his prints to be viewed at fairly high illumination levels but the galleries display them at very low light levels, which results in their looking murky and heavy. In my experience, a print that is full of lively shadows under bright illumination looks terribly murky and badly printed at low illumination. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the intent of the artists is completely lost since the balance of tonalities is completely upset.

3) The light by which the print is evaluated: Prints are typically evaluated in the fix or squeegeed and viewed on a stand in the darkroom with a print inspection light. You might be inclined to have the print inspection light at the same level as the final print viewing light. But this is probably mistaken. You have just spent some time in a relatively dark room and your pupils are probably fairly wide open. A sudden increase in light levels tend to be subjectively viewed as terribly bright (evaluation of highlights tends to be particularly compromised). So you actually need to have an inspection light that is quite a bit less bright than the final viewing light level. How much less? I can't say - it probably depends upon your specific darkroom, the speed to adjust of your dark-adapted eyes etc. But, if my experience is any indication, this is a fairly significant issue that is worth thinking about and consciously addressing.

4) Artist intent: Artists obviously change over their lifetimes and experiences (and thank God for that - what would art be without growth?). David Travis's contention in 'Last years in Carmel' is that Weston's last photographs are revealing of his inner state of mind to a greater than usual degree - that they reflect the inner state of someone who was weathering great storms. It does not seem unreasonable that the darker end of the scale may have become more important to Weston and his prints therefore required greater amounts of light to see what he was seeing as he gazed into the shadows closing around.

5) This is one reason I think books with excellent reproductions are becoming more important. While they may not be the real thing, they may actually give you a better idea of what the artist intended. An example. The statue of David by Micahelangelo originally used to be outside in the public square of the Pallazo della Signoria. It apparently signified (or came to signify) the defense of civil liberties in the Republic of Florence which was threatened on all sides by more powerful states. The statue was apparently originally placed with the eyes of David looking in the direction of Rome with a warning glare. The original statue is now located inside the Galleria della Accademia, and a replica stands in the original location. It may be a replica but you could build an argument that the replica (even though it probably lacks the subtleties of the artists strokes) gives a truer representation of the artist's intent than the original.

Cheers, DJ

[Drew Wiley]

In this case, what the insurer wants overrides every other hypothetical lighting parameter.

[Darin Boville]

An update. On my summer trip I purchased a large number of exhibit catalogues which I am slowing digesting. I just had a look at the small catalogue for the Denver show where the Weston photo was on display.

As you will recall, here is the photo from the show:

124283

It appears in the photo very close to how it looked in the gallery in terms of lighting, etc. See my earlier post with this image which shows a comparison photo next to it.

And now the reproduction in the catalogue (which also looks about right to my eye compared to the real book image):

124284

Quite a difference.

--Darin

[Bruce Barlow]

Every genuine Edward print I have ever seen glows. Don't I wish I could print even half as well...

A few years ago, I saw an Ansel show, or at least sort of saw it. The lighting was so dim the prints were barely visible, and looked terrible.

As far as today's young people, Fred Picker, in his workshop in the 80s, used the opening evening (of what was, at that time, a 10-day workshop), for a long session basically entitled "What does a good picture look like?" He and other instructors spoke about that, and we all went to the gallery area where they had their pictures up to see examples. Aesthetics 101. For me, as a photographic puppy, it was an incredible evening.

A few years ago, I went to a show at what is purported to be an outstanding college photo program (no, Kirk, not AIC), whose head is a pretty prominent guy. The students' work was, for the most part, terrible. As Kirk and others here bemoan, it was flashy, colorful, jumbled, confused, superficial, and empty. Depressing, too.

These days, when even more people claim to be "photographers" because they post iPhone images to Facebook, I dream of sitting them down for a serious chat about what makes a good picture, complete with wagging finger.

But I'm just a grumpy old man.

[Drew Wiley]

Unlike most photographers I never saw a real AA print until I was doing gallery gigs practically in his back yard (I only did color printing at that time). My parents
didn't even want me in Best Studio in Yos cause it was rigged for little kids like me actually brushing ceramic chipmunks off the shelves and breaking them. After a couple incidents like that, I was kept in the station wagon while my older brother looked at prints for sale of popular image no doubt made by AA's assistants. But within that 25 yr gap between brat and showing my own work I was exposed to any number of authentic EW prints, which were in fact fairly common in Central Calif collections. Virtually all of em were contact prints, of course, but I can't remember a single one of them that wasn't meticulously printed and rang true, right on the mark. Silver, just silvery silver. I got acquainted with his previous pictorial phase more from local museums, but same story - right
on the mark. It wasn't until an heir of a big collection from that part of the world opened a gallery down the street here that, for the first time, I saw a bunch
of "seconds" for sale - misfired images and the kinds of #$@ prints that EW probably threw into some box somewhere before final culling. Well, after a few sales the first week, that gallery didn't last long. But Darin - I wonder if Laura Gilpin even used the ZS. She doesn't strike me as the type. Kirk might know.

[Bill_1856]

I don't think they disliked it. I think they were indifferent to it. This generation of kids are drawn to tasty tidbits that can be quickly consumed and then move on. Images are like fast food. They are not savored or contemplated.
The "younger generation," having been exposed to such a plethora of images, are/may be generally able to assimilate and appreciate the contents in only a fraction of the time that old folks (such as you and me) require. Rather like speed-readers who accurately absorb and comprehend an entire book in only a fraction of the time that ordinary readers laboriously plod through it.
We're being left behind, you know!

[Peter Collins]

I think Sal Santamura is right--the lighting at many museums is terrible. Perhaps many conservators are not aware of the history of photographic art, or don't care.

I saw 20 E Weston prints at Univ Mich Museum of Art last year. It was noteworthy (to me) that the best of them were on loan to the Museum from Howard Bond, who like the U, is in Ann Arbor. The lighting, yes, was low, but bright enough that the prints shone.

In the early 70s I went to Birmingham, MI to see Ansel Adams at a commercial gallery (later moved and was named the 831 Gallery). And then I went for a second time to the 831, the owner had bright spots on each of the prints. They really grabbed me, as I have said elsewhere. (K. Giddings' post and resulting thread on education in photography.) I was hooked and still am.

[Kirk Gittings]

The "younger generation," having been exposed to such a plethora of images, are/may be generally able to assimilate and appreciate the contents in only a fraction of the time that old folks (such as you and me) require. Rather like speed-readers who accurately absorb and comprehend an entire book in only a fraction of the time that ordinary readers laboriously plod through it.
We're being left behind, you know!

I totally disagree. I teach 18 kids of this generation every semester from all over the world. It is universal. They are not like speed readers at all. Images are like fast food that they swallow so fast they don't even taste it. They don't see anything beyond what a casual glance will get them from across the room. The only thing they remember a minute later is what was glaringly obvious like a slap in the face. Subtly, meaning, nuance? Not a chance. The first thing I have to do is get them to slow down, get out of their chairs and actually go and look at a print.