AA is the God of Photography!!! In todays fast food-close is good enuff-video game instant gratification society some people will never grasp the concept that good results take work and knowledge.
Ansel was a highly talented photographer and a great educator. He is not a god. Calling him a god is to freeze photography in that mid-century modernist moment, a bit like deifying JMW Turner and declaring all landscape painting since is merely derivative.
As an amatuer, AA's 3 volume photography series has taught me virtually everything that I understand about the subject. What I appreciate the most is his fluency in the science of photgraphy and how that correlates to realizing the initial visualization in the final print. Buried somewhere in the first volume he wrote, “I believe there is nothing more disturbing than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept” - I love that.
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Sorry, J. I mispoke myself. I was thinking linearly such as photography might be the next step up from painting. Definitely not a plug for digital. Not here, anyway. Thanks for the comments and the reads, all.
Sorry, J. I mispoke myself. I was thinking linearly such as photography might be the next step up from painting. Definitely not a plug for digital. Not here, anyway. Thanks for the comments and the reads, all.
Chris
Thanks for clarifying that, Chris. For the record, I am an unashamed, unabashed, Ansel Adams fan as well.
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--J Brunner, The Prints of Darkness
I admire AA for many reasons. But right now, most of all, because on a tiny little corridor in Dad's Diner in Copake (a Diner that is otherwise a monument to 1950's hot rods) - the very corridor that leads to the restrooms there is a framed AA picture of a maple tree in winter.
Given the rest of the Diner's "theme" (including the wallpaper in the Men's Room that features pics of Mustangs*, "bug-eyed" Corvettes, 1957 BellAires) the presence of a framed AA shot suggests that he too has become an American icon!
Gotta love it. I get to see AA and hot rods when I go to take a pee!
* Yes, I know Mustangs are 1964-1/2 or later - but tell that to the wallpaper guy!
"He was a great photographer and (by most accounts) a nice person too. But there is a distinction between AA and some of his followers, just as there is a distinction between Christ and some Christians (the sort who burned witches, for example)."
Linear Mode
