If Ansel Adams Were Still Alive...

[Frank Bagbey]

Would Ansel Adams use an electronic synthesiser to satisfy his musical desires?

[dan nguyen]

NO...

He would play on his piano in a barn....

[John Kasaian]

OK

This morning in my class I watched as my PBS Ansel Adams tape self destructed in the VCR. At the time, one of the narrators was discoursing on how the demands of a concert musician were considered incompatible with marriage because of constant rehearsals, long hours of practice etc... in order to be a successful classical musician.

(My initial reaction t this calamity was "gee whiz, now I've got to come up with a lecture!")

It struck me odd that the monastic life dedicated to music that is required of a classical concert musician dosen't apply to successful rock stars.

Why? Does it have anything to do with electronic synthesisers?;-)

[Marshall Arbitman]

If Ansel Adams Were Still Alive...

He'd be clawing furiosly at the lid of his coffin, trying to get out.

Now go out and make some photographs. Or stay home and play yer piano!

[Andre Noble]

John, should have gotten the DVD version.

[Kirk Gittings]

It was with early computer unsharp masking that Ansel corrected the out of focus foreground in "Moonrise" in the last poster series that he oversaw. He always used all the tools at his disposal to make his images sing in whatever form of presentation. Ansel embraced new technologies.

I had a few conversations with him in his later years because my masters thesis revolved around his contributions to photography. He continued to be deeply interested in evolving aesthetic and technical developements and spoke of his dismay at not being able to live into the next century to see what advances would be available. He also spoke of being saddened by the efforts of some who spent their lives resurrecting old printing methods. He mentioned daguerotypes and platinum in particular. This is true!

Read his books. This was a man who was always at the leading edge of technology, but a man who was always dedicated to the highest technical and artistic standards. Using some retro-mythological idea of who Ansel was to argue against digital is antithetical to who this man was and distorts his legacy.

[Donald Qualls]

From The Negative, foreword to the 1981 edition:



The challenge to the photographer is to command the medium, to use whatever current equipment and technology furthers his creative objectives, without sacrificing the ability to make his own decisions.



Adams used equipment that ranged, through a sixty-year career, from glass plates to modern Tri-X, Plus-X, and infrared films, developers ranging from ABC Pyro to HC-110 and pyrocat. He picked up multi-grade printing papers before 1970. The man who invented the Zone System was a firm believer in using what worked, and in spending what was required and available to put forward the goal of making the best images. He never backed down from innovation, even if it wasn't his -- look in The Print for his design of an 8x10 enlarger using an array of common enlarger bulbs that could be turned off in groups to control the light level without changing the color, and see how he progressed from no meter at all, at the beginning of his career, past averaging meters to the final digital spotmeters he used just before his death.



If Adams were working today, he'd probably be using the highest resolution digital available for commercial work (the stuff he used to shoot with his Hasselblad) -- and still shooting 8x10 film for art's sake, because digital still can't get close to film that size.

[Kevin M Bourque]

According to his autobiography, Adams loved his piano. He would no doubt still be playing it.

Taking a slightly larger viewpoint, the answer to the recurring question, “What would Ansel do?” is “It doesn’t matter”. It never did.

He (and many others) were great photographers, mentors and teachers. His pictures still inspire and educate. In the end, though, it’s your pictures, your choices, even if no on else likes them.

[John D Gerndt]

I too am sure he would be doing whatever it took to make great images. I don't think he cared too much for doing the same thing over and over. You can see the deliterious effect of selling the same print over and over, the first ones were better than the later ones. This seems natural. Who wnats to be an assembly line worker of his/her own art? Who wants to be tied to anything?

I do not think AA was the greatest or even the most influential photographer that ever lived. He may have been the best promoted but that was late in his career. I admire him for doing what he thought was best. I will try to do the same with my own ideas. My own ideas have to do with film and chemistry.

Cheers,

[Gem Singer]

If Jesus Christ were still alive---, what type of vehicle would he drive?

[Kerik Kouklis]

"He also spoke of being saddened by the efforts of some who spent their lives resurrecting old printing methods. He mentioned daguerotypes and platinum in particular. This is true!"

This is also stupid. It makes no sense. He was saddened that people choose to use older processes? So, is it now sad when people use gelatin silver instead of inkjet??

[Ellen Stoune Duralia]

Maybe he simply meant that he was saddened "by the efforts of some who spent their lives resurrecting old printing methods" at the exclusion of new technologies, new ideas and/or new methods.

Kinda like photographers who scoff at all things digital because it differs from the 'purist' methods of obtaining a print.

Personally, I don't understand why such debates exist at all. Art and the creation of art is such a personal thing - no one has the right to say "that's wrong", "you should be doing it this way", "you're not an artist if you use a computer", or "you are insane if you continue to use film".

Are you a creator of art? Then pick your method and fly with it :-)

[Brian Ellis]

Ansel Adams didn't invent the zone system by himself, he had a partner named Fred Archer. Adams was always generous in crediting Archer as a co-equal when he discussed development of the zone system but unfortunately Archer seems to be forgotten today.

I think that if Adams were still alive he'd be into hip hop.

[Frank Petronio]

He'd be using a Phase One on a Hassy H1 with a pretty young assistant to hold it for him. After all, he'd be 102 years old.

[Darin Cozine]

"If Jesus Christ were still alive---, what type of vehicle would he drive?"

-A Harley-Davidson, of course!

[tim atherton]

don't know about his piano, but he would have been using a digital darkroom...

In the introduction to "The Negative" Ansel wrote "I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them."

Ansel Adams 1981

[Kirk Gittings]

"This is also stupid. It makes no sense. He was saddened that people choose to use older processes? So, is it now sad when people use gelatin silver instead of inkjet??"

Kerik, I was qouting him from discussions around 1982-3. You may not agree, but it doesn't make him stupid. He was someone who looked forward not backward.

[Kerik Kouklis]

"I was qouting him from discussions around 1982-3. You may not agree, but it doesn't make him stupid. He was someone who looked forward not backward."

I have deep respect and admiration for AA and what he accomplished in his lifetime. That doesn't mean I should agree with everything he said. I didn't say HE was stupid (that would be stupid), I said the COMMENT was stupid. And I stand by that, regardless of who said it. And I only have your word that the quote is accurate. But perhaps you missed my point. Digital or daguerrotype, they're all just tools. To be 'saddened' that some choose to use older tools rather than what is "new" is, to me, stupid. Or at least a little weird. Especially when the tools produce dramatically different results. And ultimately, it's only the results that matter.

[Gem Singer]

Tim,

You mean a "Digital Lightroom".

[tim atherton]

no - digital darkroom... I just checked - it's not very light inside my computer :-)

[John Z.]

My thought is that many of us that have enjoyed working in the darkroom for years would be reluctant to give it up for digital processes. I have this hesitation about digital, because I envision myself sitting at the computer, rather than seeing a print come up in the tray, feeling the paper, seeing the prints dry, etc.
I can't speak for Ansel, and yes he was one to embrace all new technologies, but I suspect he would never trade his darkroom for an all digital method. I would love to hear more anecdotes from Kirk about his days with Ansel, and more of his thoughts...

[Chris Pandino]

Jesus Christ IS alive. Vehicle = Silver Cloud.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Yeah, and his computer is in a darkroom Eugene......good forbid digital would use their own terms...

[Kirk Gittings]

Kerik,

I went back and reread my notes. I haven't looked at them in twenty years. I think he was saddened by people who immersed themselves in these pursuits at the expense of making images. He also said this one time in other contexts, but I can't remember where. I looked in "Examples" and found this quote also:

"today's negatives and printing materials are superior to anything I have known and used in the past. I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develope."

[David Wilkenson]

"The man who invented the Zone System"

And then he taught it to Fred Archer?

[Kirk Gittings]

Johh,

Actually my contacts were limited. I met him in 1970 when he visited Beaumont Newhall's class at the University of New Mexico. Then I called him when I was stinking drunk the night that I graduated from graduate school in 1982. He was very gracious and understanding. I then called him a few months later to apologise and that call led to a series of phone conversations about many things photo related that I was writing about at the time. He was a very wise man, a great teacher and true gentleman.

[Kerik Kouklis]

" I think he was saddened by people who immersed themselves in these pursuits at the expense of making images."

Ah, context is everything, isn't it? On this, I whole-heartedly agree!! Except that it goes for all the tools: new, old and future.

[Donald Qualls]

Well, and that's the key, isn't it? "[A]t the expense of making images."

I have studied Daguerreotype technology a bit, and likely will do more with it in the future -- not because I want to preserve old technology, as such (though it galls me when a good technique is completely abandoned because one comes along that, though not necessarily better, is cheaper or quicker to produce results), but because I fully expect to to be required, by the demise of film, to make the last photographs of my life by hand sensitizing a layer of pure silver (probably on glass, much easier and cheaper than working with silver plated copper) and developing by whatever means I can work out (though likely not with mercury vapor -- possession of metallic mercury might well be a crime by then). Change is always faster than we expect...

I think I know enough about the process now to recreate it in another 30 to 50 years if necessary -- at least the essentials that will let me put an image on a plate and develop it. I hope to modernize it in the next few years to make it accessible to those who aren't willing to damage themselves (with the mercury) for their art, and possibly in the process make it cost competitive with large format film. Not because it's Daguerreotypy, not because it's old, but because it can be done by a single individual after the infrastructure of chemical photography is gone.

[Kirk Keyes]

"If Jesus Christ were still alive---, what type of vehicle would he drive?"

Obviously, he would drive this: http://www.greaterthings.com/Humor/Mormon_SUV.htm

How else would he carry around his disciples. Come to think of it, Ansel would need one too.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Kerik, unfortunatelly I beleive Kirk is right. It is well known Adams disliked pt/pd prints, I dont know the motiviation for this and I doubt it was because people were retrogrades. I get the feeling he just did not like the tonality.
You also have to think about pt/pd prints in those days, none of us could get away with selling prints like those being made in those times. To an extent I understand those who say pt/pd are "dull and lifeless" I certainly have seen some that are that way, specially from those times.

[Kerik Kouklis]

Jorge,

You said "It is well known Adams disliked pt/pd prints..."

Yes, that is well known. And it has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make.

[Bill_1856]

What do you mean, "If Ansel Adams were still alive?" He are having a large and wonderful show right now at the Ringling Museum. It are just crowded with loads of paying visitors, in fact I saw Elvis there last week enjoying the prints.

[sanking]

"I went back and reread my notes. I haven't looked at them in twenty years. I think he was saddened by people who immersed themselves in these pursuits at the expense of making images. He also said this one time in other contexts, but I can't remember where."

The fact of the matter is that Adams did not care much for non-silver methods of printing. In this he shares similar view to those held by Strand, Weston and a number of other photographers who belonged to what wee now call modernism, though the term used at the time was straight photography or purism. Both Strand and Adams wrote extensively on this subject. Both believed that photography, being a technologically derived art form, had certain attributes (detail, for example) that were best exhibited in silver printing on smooth gelatin coated surfaces, and they specifically rejected the use of processes such as Broomall, carbon, gum, and platinum. So in this sense I don't think that your original quote, i.e. that he was "saddened by the efforts of some who spent their lives resurrecting old printing methods", including daguerreotypes and platinum, to be an inaccurate description of Adams' feelings about non-silver processes. It is not just that Adams was reflecting a view that was rather widely held at the time. Rather, he, along with Strand, was one of the most active pariticipants in formulating and justifying the view.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

I think it does Kerik. I get the feeling that as nice as everybody say Adams was, he was also an opinionated guy. Look at what he did to Mortensen. It seems to me he and those belonging to the f64 group had definite ideas as to what a print should look like and had no room for accepting anybody doing something else. In that context I can understand the comment Kirk made, I dont agree with it, but I can see how and why Adams might have said that.

Funny thing is that he didnt always hit a home run. I remember while I was doing a job in New Orleans I visited the Gallery for photography and saw many of his prints, in some I was appaled at the lack of clean whites he was supposedly famous for. Then again I saw Moonrise over Hernandez at the John Cleary gallery and that was an enterly different experience.

My point is that while the comment Kirk attribuited to him is less than brilliant, it is no different from those comments against digital work being made now a days.

[william_3670]

.....a Chrystler ?

[Mark Sawyer]

" I think he was saddened by people who immersed themselves in these pursuits at the expense of making images."

I think this is indicative of Adams' viewpoint of art; like Woody Allen's simile between sharks and relationships, "it has to always be moving forward to survive, and I think what we have here is a dead shark."

To those who think of art in terms of "leading edge/avante garde" terms, it's always important to move forward even if you don't know which way forward is. Exploration is a key element. In the period that defined Adams' artistic vision, the big straight sharp proint was his leading edge, away from soft-focus pictorialist popular art photography.

To others, it's a more personal exploration, and you use whatever tools and aesthetics are appropriate to your vision.

Then you have artists like Witkin and Mann (they seem to be mentioned a lot here lately, good touchstones if nothing else,) who appropriate the old in a whole new way.

Just depends on whether you see "Art" as the ultimate end product, or as the tool to speak an ultimate truth.

[Bill_1856]

Two points, William. That was frigging beautiful (and subtle)!

[robert_4927]

Can you imagine walking into a room where the f64 club met. Weston, Adams, Steiglitz....Hell we would have needed the astrodome to just house the egos. Yes they all loved Azo and the deep rich blacks but Weston had what I would consider pretty good success with platinum as can be seen in his prints around 1912 1913. In 1914 he could only get palladium paper due to the war efforts I guess, that made platinum unavailable. But he continued using platinum even in 1924 in the Armco Steel prints. Now I would have loved to been a fly on the wall when Adams told Weston His platinum prints sucked ( I'm sure that never happened). We need to take into consideration the egos involved here. Steiglitz discouraged many young photographers with his searing critiques. And keep in mind Adams had the latest in equipment and plenty of funding while Weston was stuck in a shed with just a mercury light bulb. ( until he got the Guggenhiem fellowship of course). I would have loved to have heard the discussion between the two. All in all they both were great contibutors to the art of photography and their work speaks for itself. As far as Adams goes...well I think he would have been first in line for that 100,000 mega pixel with voice command photoshop built in that transmitted his images wirelessly to ever top gallery in the world in an instant. But we'll never know

[robert_4927]

sorry dan. let me clarify . what i should have said was silver as any silver printing i do, i do on azo thus my more pointed term as refering to silver. It is common knowledge Adams loved seagull paper and HC110 and dektol. As for Weston...Cole reprinted his fathers entire portfolio on silver under his fathers supervision. Do you know what it was printed on?

[John Kasaian]

So...uhhh....like whats the point here? What does this have to do with your photography(or taste in music?) I'm not even sure of the amusement value with this one. Would Tazio Nuvolari race a Lexus? Would Oroville Wright fly space shuttles? Would Thomas Jefferson have replaced the notion of a legislature with a computer? Would Jack Benny play the Korg? Sorry, I'm just not getting this!

[robert_4927]

John, the question was would Adams be using a digital today? It has nothing to do with any of our own photography techniques. It requires speculation. And does it really surprise you that by throwing that question out in a forum of large format photographers that it gets such a response? The gist of it is to trigger a spirited debate. The reality of it is.....would Adams be using digital today? We will never know. As far as my own work goes. To be completely honest. I could give a rats ass what Weston, Adams, or anybody else here photographs with or prints on. It won't change how I work or how I view other processes. But the banter i find amusing.

[larry suarez]

"If Jesus Christ were still alive---, what kind of vehicle would he drive?"

If I remember correctly it was a Plymouth, why? Because it says in the bible He drove Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden in a Fury.

[Merg Ross]

Robert,

It was Brett who printed his father's work for what was known as the print "project". Perhaps this is what you are referring to as his "entire portfolio". The paper used was Haloid Industro . It was after Edward's death that Cole printed from his father's negatives.

[Duane Polcou]

If Elvis was alive, would he still be into jumpsuits? And if Ansel was alive, would he want to photograph him? If Hunter Thompson was alive, would he hallucinate that Ansel was wearing a jumpsuit and that Elvis was taking his picture?

[robert_4927]

Merg, You are right. Brett printed the 50th anniversary portfolio in 1952. It was 1955 when the "Project Prints" started and they were printed by Brett, Cole, and Dody Warren under Edwards supervision.

[Ken Lee]

I just spoke with Ansel (and Elvis, of course).

He said he likes the digital workflow, but is still "rather skeptical" about the longevity of inkjet prints.

"Push comes to shove", he said, "I still make silver prints and tone them in Selenium". "Archival", he added, "is still where it's at for me".

[Shilesh Jani]

"IF he was still alive"....kinda moot isn't it since he is dead "for good"? IF I was a better photographer, I would make better photographs. Duh!

[Scott Fleming]

Well I think this thread was just a sneaky way to pose the eternal digital vs film question.

I have decided that I despise digital ..... unless and untill I get my hands on a 22mp back. ;-]

[Doug Dolde]

If Jesus Christ were still alive---, what type of vehicle would he drive?

Mercedes Benz Maybach.

[Steven Nestler]

I had many phone conversations with AA in the early 70s, and he admonished me for still using an 8x10. In 1973, he said, "nobody's using those anymore. I've been using the Hasselblads for years now."

When I saw him in 1978, he absolutely loved an 8x10 contact print I had made in 1973, and asked me about it. I reminded him of our previous conversations, and he laughed. The portfolio I showed him was of images of Maine. He was very complimentary, and admitted that the comments he had written earlier about New England being merely quaint, were hasty.

All in all, I experienced him as a warm, generous, and wise man; but, after all, still a man. For all that the popular culture has turned him into "the hood ornament of photography," he could be wrong, and could occasionally admit it.

[Edward (Halifax,NS)]

"Would Ansel Adams use an electronic synthesiser to satisfy his musical desires?"

He would still be using a piano because he doesn't have to backpack it into Yosemite.