Impressionist photographer?

[jp]

It is my belief the expressive images of AA’s work is the photographic version of impressionistic painting.

I wouldn't say it is; there are many styles of photography and photographers that have something equivalent to impressionist painting. I'd even say there are many that far exceed AA in impressionism. group f64 was against pictorialism which was more related to impressionism than the f64 styles he is famous for.

The only difference, other then one is done by brush and the other is done by camera, is the painter can use brush strokes to add texture to further amplify his emotional state of being. The photographer, on the other hand, can exploit the optical characteristics of his lenses to create optical compositions that are distinctly unique from what most painters create and can further amplify his emotional state of being. The only painter I know of that has come close to these kinds of optical compositions created by lenses is O’keeffe who most likely was influence by Stiglitz. Examples of optical compositions are achieved by using extreme wide angle lenses. closeup lenses, or extreme telephoto lenses.

The characteristics of wide/tele views were old news in art when photography came along. Prior to the 1500's there was almost no use of perspective in art, so that would be emulated by what we'd call an extreme tele style. The last supper wasn't exactly inspired by the X-pan or circut camera. Van Eyck did a great job painting a wide-angle look. But to your credit, rembrandt lighting is attributed to photography. Pictorial and early modern photography shared a great deal of composition styles with painters of contemporary and previous generations. Pictorial photography used soft focus and imperfection rather than lens angles to lend to the emotion. I think Okeefe was influenced by pictorial style and the composition in photography might have been new to photography, but not art. If you read bios of dead photographers you can learn which paint artists they were inspired by.

The photographer who practices pictorial or nature photography creates images that precisely replicate the original scene and instruct the viewer. They are literal interpretation of actual scene and lack any emotional content that is either expressive or impressionistic in nature. I do not consider this type of photography to be fine art because it lacks either emotional or intellectual (conceptual) content.

You must be speaking of a different pictorial photography than pictorialism here?

As far as literal photography, I think Eliot Porters's Maine color intimate landscapes are so literal some people would say they are simple snapshots, but they are full of emotion to me. lacking and subtle are two wildly different descriptors we have to be careful of.

In particular, I consider myself to be an expressive plein air photographer. I do create expressive images of what I saw and FELT by altering the light contrast and color contrast scene to change the mood of the scene. I do NOT alter the elements of the scene. And I create my art in the field in the same manner as a plein air painter.

Unless you shoot polaroids or wet plates, you don't have a finished product when you're on site. This is a difference AA would have promoted, as he was big on saying it's not finished till you're out of the darkroom.