Article about revisiting site of AA photo.

[drew.saunders]

Scott Herhold of the San Jose Mercury News wrote a nice little article about visiting Hornitos, CA in the Sierra foothills to look for the "tripod holes" of an Ansel Adams photo.

http://www.mercurynews.com/columns/ci_13911535

[Mark Sampson]

That's very cool.
And he didn't try to re-create the shot!

[SW Rick]

And here's one about revisiting/recreating the site of the Moon and Half Dome shot the other night

http://theanseladamsgallery.blogspot...revisited.html

[rdenney]

I once embarked on a similar expedition, as a brief self-assignment, and largely unwittingly, within a larger trip along the high road from Santa Fe to Taos. At Las Trampas, I found the same iron grave marker that Adams photographed in the 30's and included in Photographs of the Southwest. I made my own color photo, and when I compared prints of mine to his, I noticed some interesting things also visible in the images in the OP's linked article. The main one is that Adams often reversed tones. In his picture, the wood of the cross on the grave marker was weathered and reflected bright sun. He used a yellow or red filter to render that reflected light brightly--Zone VII or VIII. The blue sky behind it was very dark by comparison. In my picture, the old wood and iron was nearly black, and the sky behind, even darkened by a thunderstorm, was quite bright in comparison. (There are reasons my photo is not on display, and being derivative of an Adams photo isn't the only one).

I actually didn't remember that he had photographed that cross when I made my picture, but when I saw the proofs I remembered it. So, I didn't realize how different his rendering was until after the fact.

Here's a 2005 photo from Wikipedia of the Las Trampas church, and you can just see the grave marker to the left of the facade and behind the wall. I was there about 20 years earlier.



I think it's a useful exercise to stand in the same places from which great photographs have been made, and then understand how those photographs altered reality to deliver the message that made them great.

Rick "who needs to go back to the southwest" Denney

[Richard K.]

I think it's a useful exercise to stand in the same places from which great photographs have been made, ......

Educational and fun! Just don't be tempted to take a similar photograph...

I have enjoyed finding many of Ansel's tripod locations (the holes are long gone ) but I spent the better part of an afternoon trying to locate the exact spot for his boulder field at Manzanar photograph (Mt. Williamson, The Sierra Nevada, from Manzanar, California, 1945) I looked and looked but couldn't find that characteristic foreground boulder! Anyone have any luck? Do you hae GPS coordinates ?

[SW Rick]

I don't have access to the book right now, but I think in his book, The Making of 40 Photographs, he said something about shooting from the roof of his car (platform) because he couldn't get the angle he wanted if he was lower. It's been a while, so memory (what's left) may be playing tricks.
Could this have been a factor when you looked? Or perhaps a souvenir hunter took it for their A.A. memorabilia collection?

[Richard K.]

I don't have access to the book right now, but I think in his book, The Making of 40 Photographs, he said something about shooting from the roof of his car (platform) because he couldn't get the angle he wanted if he was lower. It's been a while, so memory (what's left) may be playing tricks.
Could this have been a factor when you looked? Or perhaps a souvenir hunter took it for their A.A. memorabilia collection?

Ah so it had to be near a drivable path, not randomly in the rocks! I didn't have a car platform, so yes maybe it was a factor.

That souvenir hunter must be one strong dude! I figure that rock weighs around a billion pounds (it might as well!)!

[Alan Curtis]

I was photographing around the Las Trampas church about 20 years ago and saw the small cross that AA had photographed. My temptation to try and replicate the image quickly disappeared when I saw the "lovely" plastic flowers that someone had taped to the cross.

[Chuck P.]

I think it's a useful exercise to stand in the same places from which great photographs have been made, and then understand how those photographs altered reality to deliver the message that made them great.

I agree. I would relish the idea of placing my tripod where a famous photographer placed his-----I then would proceed to make my own photograph of a well known "perspectve", there's nothing wrong with that! It would be my passion for photography coupled with a respect for the original artist that puts me there rather than some misguided belief that I'm going to make a famous photograph too----it would just be cool. Then I would also try and photograph it with purley my own visualization. I'll never understand why it is considered cheap to photograph what has been photographed before, especially when it is a purely personal endeavor.

[Bruce Barlow]

The inimitable Steve Simmons once challenged me to find where Ansel made "Moonrise, Hernandez," and said I'd never find it. Armed with my 11-year old son, who, not having seen the picture in twio years, said "gonna look for the gravestones?" we found it, thanks to his sharp eyes, found it amidst a trailer park on the road from Santa Fe to Taos, I think. It was a sad sight.