Photographers in the Doghouse, William Mortensen, et. al.

[Brian C. Miller]

Reading a bit about William Mortensen (http://photo.net/photography-education-forum/005fZU), AA called him "the Devil" and "the Antichrist." Mortensen had a Metal-Krome process to produce color prints, and 73 years later a print still looks good.

Now, what other photographers are out there, languishing in obscurity, especially those who have been reviled by the establishment?

[Mark Sampson]

If you dig a little deeper into that bit of history you'll probably find that Mortensen was of the 'establishment' in his time, commercially very successful and well-respected. And that the f/64 people were radicals from the artistic backwater of northern California, very much outside what 'establishment' there was in the 1930s. You might say that Mortensen was much like the well-respected and successful painters of the 19th-century French Academy, who were eventually overturned by the reviled Impressionists. Times and styles change.

[Kirk Gittings]

Yes, in his day Mortensen was perhaps the most famous photographer in the country? this made him the target of the radical up and coming modernists.

[Brian C. Miller]

Yes, I did read about Mortensen's earlier vs later years. What I didn't know about it was that Adams was so absolutely set against him. Did the f/64 group revile George Hurrell? Stuff like this is like turning over a rock and finding all sorts of neat things on the underside!

What I'm looking for are other photographers who were reviled, staked through the chest, buried alive, and were producing good work.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Alfred Cheney Johnston, another 'disappeared' photographer.

High end nudes for trust-fund babies, trophy wives, actresses, ect. Was charging upwards of $12,000 per session in the 1920's and was booked solid thru the years.

Hunt him down on the net, has been re-discovered.

[John Kasaian]

I don't know about being reviled, but John Garo of Boston certainly dropped off the face of the photography world although he was highly lauded in his time

[Jim Jones]

At least John Garo is immortal for helping Yousuf Karsh get started. As for Mortensen, he published books that have information often valid today, but illustrated by photography that was sometimes awkward and even grotesque. Oh, what he could have done with Photoshop!

[jmooney]

If you dig a little deeper into that bit of history you'll probably find that Mortensen was of the 'establishment' in his time, commercially very successful and well-respected. And that the f/64 people were radicals from the artistic backwater of northern California, very much outside what 'establishment' there was in the 1930s. You might say that Mortensen was much like the well-respected and successful painters of the 19th-century French Academy, who were eventually overturned by the reviled Impressionists. Times and styles change.

Vive Meissonier!

[neil poulsen]

I have and value some of Mortensen's books.

It's interesting that Mortensen was one of the first to coin the phrase, "expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights." For example, it's included as part of Mortensen's book on the negative.

Of course, this is the fundamental principle on which Ansel Adam's zone system is based.

[Merg Ross]

If you dig a little deeper into that bit of history you'll probably find that Mortensen was of the 'establishment' in his time, commercially very successful and well-respected. And that the f/64 people were radicals from the artistic backwater of northern California, very much outside what 'establishment' there was in the 1930s. You might say that Mortensen was much like the well-respected and successful painters of the 19th-century French Academy, who were eventually overturned by the reviled Impressionists. Times and styles change.

It was from Arthur Kales, who grew up here in the "artistic backwater of northern California", (Oakland) that William Mortensen learned photography in the 1920's. Kales was a very successful Pictorial photographer in the Bay Area before going to southern California.


Yes, in his day Mortensen was perhaps the most famous photographer in the country? this made him the target of the radical up and coming modernists.

Steichen was much better known during this time, (and better paid) as a result of his Vanity Fair and advertising work.

The mention of the Newhall's in the original post is interesting. I must disagree with A.D. Coleman's thoughts on their role at MOMA in destroying Mortensen's place in the history of photography. I would suggest that it was Steichen who played down the significance of Mortensen at MOMA, after he stole the curatorship from Beaumont Newhall at the end of WWII. That is an interesting story, and worthy of research by members of this forum who have an interest in the politics of photography at the museum level.

[Doug Howk]

One of the traits of critics like A.D.Coleman is that they need to find/rediscover a photographer who they then proceed to champion even when the quality of their work does not merit. The critic often invents some conspiratorial theory for why their photographer is not held in higher esteem. There is a great exchange between Coleman and Judy Siegel in "the Post Factory Photography" journal about Mortensen.

[jp]

It seems like these famous dead guys are curmudgeons while also having been trendsetters. I think it's sorta like some of the people on here falling off the map instead of going digital. And like us, they all have opinions.

AA had produced some decent soft focus pictorial images during it's heyday, but he was clearly better suited to the f64 style. Perhaps because he was better at it, he liked the f64 style better, at the expense of pictorial and abstract styles.

Coburn stopped photography, but had been an influential pictorialist.

Frederick Evans got out of photography when platinum printing became unaffordable, rather than adapt to something else.

Newhall's obviously didn't care for the soft/pictorial styles. His textbook on photo history is by far the most commonly used, and most people's academic understanding of photo history is based on this. He glossed over pictorialism and picks photos to illustrate the artist's styles that don't do justice. When I started digging into pictorialism more, I wondered why Newhall picked such un-representative photos for this era for some, not all, of the artists. There is no obvious single source of information to educate on all styles of photography.

[cowanw]

Yes, the breakup of the early Stieglitz pictorialist group left a number of photographers out in the cold.
I particularily think Clarence White took a hit historically. If one traces Modernist photography , it is quite oten that well known modernists are traced back to White; more commonly so than tracing them back to Stieglitz.

[jp]

I just finished reading "Pictorialism into Modernism: The Clarence H. White School of Photography by Marianne Fulton".

White was a highly regarded pictorialist. Many of his students ended up being modernist. He wasn't the only teacher at the school, and had lecturers that didn't agree with pictorialism. He did have students and staff that were respected pictorialists too and was very well connected with the pictorialist crowd including coburn, day, kasabier, etc..

The book wasn't clear why White mostly stopped photography for himself. I suspect like many good teachers, he put his all into the teaching and didn't reserve time for personal photography. Before he was a teacher, his photography was probably a passionate diversion from a boring job. It did mention White didn't have much interest in photographing NYC, but I didn't see a ton of White photos from CT or Maine either. There is at least one in Maine, but it looks more like a Day without the male model; he summered next to Day in Maine.

[Jim Galli]

One could argue that Karl Struss fits your descriptors. His problem was not the quality of his work, but he was initially sympathetic to Nazi ideals and the art community basically blackballed him. He dis-appears for a score of years and then as a full attestation to his ability has a long career in Hollywood as a cinematographer. Clarence White and Steiglitz, both his contemporary's both blackballed him. Or at least that's the way I read it.

You could make the argument that shunning an artist for political reasons is categorically different than shunning for purely aesthetic differences as in the other cases.

Somebody help me out here. It was WWI so it wasn't the Nazi's, but it was something similar that was uber right wingish. I'll welcome a better synopsis, as it's a very interesting case.

[Doug Howk]

Here's a good read on Karl Struss (http://www.theasc.com/blog/2009/12/14/karl-struss-a-tripod-in-two-worlds-part-one%E2%80%94new-york/) Anti-German sentiment was apparently quite strong on the East Coast where he worked.

[Merg Ross]

Here's a good read on Karl Struss (http://www.theasc.com/blog/2009/12/14/karl-struss-a-tripod-in-two-worlds-part-one%E2%80%94new-york/) Anti-German sentiment was apparently quite strong on the East Coast where he worked.

Doug, thanks for the link. I learned a bit more about Struss, and have always appreciated his still compositions; the Brooklyn Bridge image is really stunning.

[MDR]

Thanks for the link to the ASC site interesting read it seems that Struss' Friends weren't really his friends after all and reminds one a little of the witch trials during the McCarthy era.

Dominik

[Bill_1856]

Here's a good read on Karl Struss (http://www.theasc.com/blog/2009/12/14/karl-struss-a-tripod-in-two-worlds-part-one%E2%80%94new-york/) Anti-German sentiment was apparently quite strong on the East Coast where he worked.

Thanks for the link Doug. Interesting!

[Lynn Jones]

I'm 80 and have been shooting for money since 1947. 10 years later, I went to Brooks Inst. and my mentor/teacher Boris Dobro knew that Wm. Mortensen was my favorite photographer so he said, "You like Bill, would you like t meet him?" Of course I didn't even know that he was alive. I first visited Bill at his studio and then later I worked with him a couple of times getting to know quite a bit about his technology as well as his art, he created toners and developers and other chemicals from his substantial knowledge.
A short story, the first time I saw him he was coming out of the darkroom with a double Nikor tank, he opened the refrigerator and poured out a colorless liquid from a pitcher into the developing tank, shook the tank and put both in the refrigerator. I asked him what that was and he said developer, I asked how long, he said, 3 to 5 days, just before the emulsion falls off. Do you agitate it, he said yes occasionally when I think about it, then what, the usual stop, fix, wash. I think that mostly when he did this, he was doing figures in shadowless lighting and the result was a figure study that looked like carved stone. The developer, most likely D23.

Lynn

[Jay DeFehr]

Lynn,

Great story! Ever try to replicate W.M.'s method?

[Brian C. Miller]

Score one for William Mortensen!

The results are done. I developed a roll of Fuji Acros 100 in Ilford Ilfosol 3. I mixed the Ilfosol with cold tap water 1:9, gave it 30 seconds of shaking, and put it in the fridge. It's been in there for five days, getting shaken once in the morning before I went to work, and maybe once or twice in the evening. It's being washed right now, and I'll put the results in the Lounge thread.

Bottom line: yes, it works. No, it doesn't ruin the film. Everything is fine. Would I do this again? Since there's no difference doing the refrigeration method and normal development, no. Really good shadows, though. To know any differences for sure I'd have to photograph a grey scale and actually see what the values are between this and normal development.

[Lynn Jones]

For Jay,

Yes I've tried it in D23, D25, and D76. D23 worked the best in the Tri X before Kodak re-calculated it. It has been about 24 or 25 years since I tried it. It worked best in shadowless lighting and with lower than normal contrast since you are at gamma infinity under those circumstances. Grain is substantial but acceptable.

Lynn