james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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Ansel Adams was one of the pioneers of modern photography. He wasn't the only one though. He wrote extensively about the technical and aesthetic aspects of the medium and a lot of people have read and used them. He trained some of the good photographers working today and was a leading tester of photographic materials developed by Kodak, Agfa, Ilford, ect. He helped develope the polaroid system for Edward Land. He hobnobbed with most of the great photographic, literary, and visual artists of this century. And he helped develope the zone system of exposure and processing film and paper. Most people equate Adams with the landscape but he did so much more. He, Dorothea Lang and others worked for the FSMA(?) during the great depression and have been published widely. Some folks don't think he was all that great but he is published and collected more than any other photographer this century. Some will say that he just has a better marketing sceme, but marketing ain't beans if your stuff isn't good. Before I piss too many A.A. haters off I'll just say that he has taught more people to photograph than anyone else ever has. Anyone care to spar? James
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Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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mark lindsey
(K=1720) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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I agree with James on this one (big surprise to those of you who have sparred with me). Adams himself was more humble about his success by saying that he was just in the right place at the right time. He certainly didn't think himself to be the best (a title, which he often bestowed upon Weston). The thing that I often find to be funny is that many claim to highly respect just about any photographer but Adams and yet they ignore the high opinion these same photographers had or have of Adams. Such as Stieglitz or Weston, two regular joes who had a passing fancy for photography. :)
Hmmm, reads a bit choppy---just got done toning and washing, must be the fumes.
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Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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I thought Elvis was the "king".
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Dell Elzey
(K=74) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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I appreciate AA because he shared his knowledge of the craft of photography and enabled me to learn. I enjoy his work but am overwhelmed by the beauty of EW's work.
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Jeff Spirer
(K=2523) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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Hmmm, some of these answers don't seem to be Ansel Adams as a photographer, which is, I think, the point. Sure he was a great teacher, writer, product tester and developer. That doesn't make him "the greatest photographer who ever lived." Most defense of Adams seems to run along these lines.
The idea that we should like Adams because other photographers we might like were fans of Adams is just plain laughable. What if start naming photographers who didn't like him? Do we change our opinion?
I agree with Trib however. How many Enquirer covers has Adams had? How many times has he been spotted since he "died"? These are the true test for royalty.
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John Kantor
(K=1664) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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Among photographers, AA is respected, but I doubt worshipped. Among others he's a "celebrity" - which is not a gauge of merit, but a title capriciously bestowed by popular culture.
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Richard Newman
(K=15) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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No, Adams isn't the King. I don't think we have one in photography. But I do think he ranks among the "nobility" - say the top 100 photographers - or maybe the top 150.... As for Elvis, he is the king - of black velvet kitsch art.
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James D. Steele
(K=273) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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Ansel would be a giant in the field if, for no other reason than his contributions to our understanding of the craft and science of photography. He shared everything he ever learned and we are the richer for it.
As to his "art," that is for each of us as an individual to decide. Personally, I believe Ansel was the master craftsman, but Weston was the artist.
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Martin Davidson
(K=62) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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It also helps that his photographs are so easy to "get". Their technical quality, and their subject matter are not obscure. Their scale and grandeur are very clear-cut.
Sometimes being an OBVIOUS genius helps turn you into the benchmark for all other genius in your field.
He therefore has many fans, INCLUDING people who dont, as a rule, like photography that much, the same way people who dont like classical music like Eine Kleine Nacht Musik, or who dont like modern art, like Guernica.
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Marv
(K=216) - Comment Date 4/30/1999
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Call it the photographic "cult of personality" if you will.
Everyone has given valid reasons why he has the stature that he does, and he definately had his short comings. I think you need to take all of his accomplishments and undertakings into account when you judge the merit of his lifes work. He stood out from the crowd and as such is oft quoted and used as a bench mark, but in the end we all have our "kings", and they won't be the same ones, thank God!
I try to learn from those I see as my better, and leave it at that. Kings tend to come and go, some for the better and some for the worse. Ansel, H.C.B., the Weston's, et al seem to be names that crop up more than most others, and as such make bigger impressions and larger targets.
Dittos trib. Thank ya, thank ya verry muuch!! (Doesn't sound any better in person, either)
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mark lindsey
(K=1720) - Comment Date 5/1/1999
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"The idea that we should like Adams because other photographers we might like were fans of Adams is just plain laughable. What if start naming photographers who didn't like him? Do we change our opinion? "
What is laughable is that you missed my point completely, I would never advocate your misinterpretation of what I said.
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mark lindsey
(K=1720) - Comment Date 5/1/1999
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and another thing, yes I do feel that Adams was a fine artist.
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james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 5/1/1999
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And I might add that popular culture "IS" the measure by which artists and their works are gaged. People like HBC and AA and Wegman and the gal who dresses up babies as flowers. If the masses don't like it then that should be a clue as to how good the stuff is. Yeah, I might like a persons creations very much but lot and chris and t. and trib might not. So the question begs to be asked. Is that artists stuff good? Or is it just my opinion and the stuff in reality stinks? How do you define the good and the bad? Personal opinion? Yes. If you like it, it is good for you. If ten thousand like it it is good for them. If you like it but no one else does, then I guess it stinks. Some don't like Ansels subject matter and that's allright. They're entitled to be wrong. Everyone takes potshots at the great ones. Jealousy? But a lot of his work is very powerful. Maybe you just don't like the great outdoors. Oh well. His audience suggests his stature. James.
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kurt heintzelman
(K=954) - Comment Date 5/1/1999
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Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Hendricks, Steely Dan, Flora Purim, Santana, Eric Johnson... John kennedy Toole's A Confederacy Of Dunces... David LaChapelle... some geniuses that come to mind for me. Ansel Adams' images are technically perfect but not infrequenttly boring to my eyes.
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Dan Smith
(K=1407) - Comment Date 5/1/1999
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His talent. His images. His quality. His printing. His lifelong contribution to the craft & art of photography in teaching and sharing his knowledge with others. Remember, many of his excellent images are now 60 years old. In a time when equipment, film and paper were not close in quality to what we have available today, he put out quality that still stands head and shoulders above much of what we now see. Yes, others were and are excellent and AA championed photographers & photography and from everything I know of the man he well deserves his pedestal.
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Howard Creech
(K=3161) - Comment Date 5/2/1999
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Somebody has to be the King....and I for one have no problem with AA being that somebody...he was at best an exceptional photographer with a singular vision of an American Icon (the West) and at his worst a truly nice guy who shared himself with world in which he lived. History will decide if Adams (or any of our current day heros) are remembered in a hundred years...for the present, however St. Ansel's place is guaranteed. Finally, AA had the dignity and taste to never inspire a velvet painting of his smiling bearded face. He inspired more people to pick up a camera than any photographer who ever lived....all things considered, a King that we can live with...a benevolent despot. Worship at his feet, or reject him completely...it is impossible to ignore him. I think he would have approved.
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Mike Dixon
(K=1387) - Comment Date 5/3/1999
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"Somebody has to be the King...."
I guess so, but only if you accept that we MUST have a ruler, that we NEED a path to follow, that there is one TRUE way.
"There goes the king." "'Ow do you know 'e's the king?" "'E must be the king--'e 'asn't got shit all over 'im." --courtesy of Monty Python
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Jeff Spirer
(K=2523) - Comment Date 5/3/1999
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Somebody has to be the King....and I for one have no problem with AA being that somebody...he was at best an exceptional photographer
Why do you get to choose, Howard, and why do we even want a "king"? I think he was an emotionally dead photographer. I would have been happy to pay him for a class, but if someone gave me one of his photos, I would sell it. Now if it was a free Meatyard...
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mark lindsey
(K=1720) - Comment Date 5/4/1999
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Howard Creech
(K=3161) - Comment Date 5/4/1999
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Mike and Jeff, don't get all wired up guys, it was a why not sort of response...if you had read my post I think you would have seen that I refer to St. Ansel (in the position of "King of the Photographers") as a benevolent despot...And Jeff, I have every right to choose for myself, and nowhere did I say "This also includes Jeff Spirer" Mike...I don't need a king, I was just responding to a question/post. Sometimes Kings can be a good thing, Spain was much worse off (under Franco)in earlier times, than they are now that they have King Juan Carlos (who actually ain't telling anybody what to do) People like kings...especially if they are just figureheads. I also believe that AA was more craftsman than artist, and I completely agree with your praise of Meatyard (whom Modern Photography once called "America's greatest unknown photographer") However, say what you will, among non- photographers (and a large number of serious photographers as well) AA is the most famous photographer who ever lived...like him or hate him, he earned the title king. As an aside, I don't really like Elvis as "the King" either, I think that there were several Rock-a- Billy artists who were much better (Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the guy who originally did "I don't want to hang up my rock'n'roll shoes" whose name escapes me at the moment) but the truth is that Elvis is the best known, and most loved of them...he automatically assumes the crown, based on popular recognition....I mean Jesus, it is a really meaningless title (in either case)
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Chris Hawkins
(K=1508) - Comment Date 5/4/1999
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Dan Smith said it right regarding AA.
Elvis, while maybe not the best, was certainly a wonderful performer who had what it takes to make millions adore him and his style.
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Jeff Spirer
(K=2523) - Comment Date 5/4/1999
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Elvis, like most kings, got to that position because a) he had an advantage other people didn't (a lot of people had been making music like Elvis but couldn't get airplay outside of "race radio") and b)a professional manipulator pulled his strings.
Dan Smith has an opinion. That doesn't make it "right." While I often agree with Dan, I don't find Adams work the least bit compelling, and have observed that it is most frequently found in the homes of engineers and other technical types, which is in line with my own thoughts about Adams.
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Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 5/5/1999
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It is a personal choice. For me the icons are a representational body that includes pres. pro tem Walker Evans or speaker Bill Brandt. Adams is the figurehead (pres) and in that capacity serves us all very well. I disagree with Jeff's opinions on AA but agree on the potentcy of Meatyard.
Elvis was a talented young man, the older version is nauseatingly hilarious. The real king of rock may be Junior Parker(Mystery Train) or possibly a queen, Big Mamma Thornton(The well spring for Leiber and Stoller) or Carl Perkins or Milton Brown. Jerry Lee was the latest whitest "Barrel House" pie'-annie' player but the "lazy-left-handed" Killer is the best of that tradition left. Get the hell out of here with that Steely Dan nonsense.
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Paul Beard
(K=15) - Comment Date 5/6/1999
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I thought Adams was accorded the respect he gets by his role in making photography an art form, rather than a recording tool. His books on the tools of his art, such as Example: the making of 40 photographs make it clear that what he saw in a scene's potential and what an observer standing next to him would have seen were often very different. Color filtration, compression/expansion of development times, tonal placement -- the Zone system -- all these are part of his contribution to the art.
This doesn't mean his are the best photographs ever taken. But the techniques he developed and his willingness to share them makes him deserving of the high regard he enjoys.
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Darron Spohn
(K=781) - Comment Date 5/14/1999
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Bob Wills is still the King.
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Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 5/14/1999
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"aaaaaahhhh-hhhaaaaaaaah!, Is everybody happy?.....aaahhvvv course you arrre!"- Bob Wills (a little pepper-talk from Steel Guitar Rag)
Damn straight Darron!
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james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 5/15/1999
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If you listen really carefully you can still hear him on the air out on the lonesome highways in the dead of night.
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Robert Lyman
(K=177) - Comment Date 5/28/1999
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Two things. Luck, and the strange need in our society to proclaim a "greatest". Ansel Adams was a great photographer who happened to be in a number of right places at the right times. Many of his bids for self-promotion paid off big time. He worked very hard and became a star. Edward Weston (for example) was IMHO even more talented, just as skillful, worked just as hard, and never acheived even half the fame. Go figure.
Bob
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Andrew Patteson
(K=2) - Comment Date 3/28/2000
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Not only the Steely Dan nonsense, but the LaChappelle drivel. . .his work has as much lasting value and meaning as the Backstreet Boys do.
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daniel taylor
(K=269) - Comment Date 3/30/2000
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I must have missed the Backstreet Boys three volume classic on singing and stage performance.
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jim megargee
(K=165) - Comment Date 3/30/2000
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Most of the photographers mentioned have produced good (and at time Great work) Many photographers not mentioned have also done the same. To hold one up above the rest or to try to compare one to the other in their importance seems a fools game. The popularity of someone like A squared has always been a result of popular media. His images are direct and easily excessable to the general public. (so are most calender photos) the general public know nothing of the zone system, etc. What I find detramental about his work is how many photographers attempt to emulate his work and judge their own success on how closely their work resembles his in both style and technique. PS- LaChapplle? HA HA HA HA yeah right.
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james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 3/31/2000
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I always try to take Jim's insight a bit farther. I like AA and his work. Obviously there are a lot of photographers that feel the same way. But I keep hearing that buzz of disrespect for a man who did a lot for photography by being visible. Ok, here goes. You think AA has no redeeming value because he just shoots landscapes or because he uses the zone system or he is a media darling and makes money from his relationship with the merchandizers. So you want to be more aligned with Eugene Smith or Robert Frank or Walker Evans or "current socially unacceptable street shooter". How different are you from AA or John Sexton or Edward Weston or "any current socially acceptable landscape shooter?" Does your choice of whom to follow artistically, make you any better or different than any other photographer. I look at photography all of the time. I surf the net all night long 4 nights a week and go to every gallery/bookstore/photographic museum around. I look at thousands of images. I don't see much that is different than what has gone before. Man-Ray is not any different than Bourke-White or Minor White or graciela Iturbide. One portrait of a person on the street looks the same as any other, just as any shot of half dome looks like the last one or the next one. What is different? Actually quite a bit, and nothing. I have seen Jeff's images( some of which are interesting) but fail to see anything different than some of the other posters here. No criticism intended Jeff. Ansel Adams was very good at what he did. He was a master that few could touch in his day. Many emulated him and there were many street shooters who couldn't print worth shit. But AA didn't shoot the same thing that Robert Frank or Walker Evans or Man-Ray or Eugene Smith shot. Look at "Trailer Park Children" taken during the war years by AA. Or AA's shot of Georgia O'Keefe and her friend bantering together on their walk with AA out in New Mexico. Great shots. Increadible expressions caught at just the right time. He had the sense of the moment, the vision. But that wasn't his stock in trade. He saw and imaged the landscape. That was what moved him. Eugene Smith saw social commentary and put his vision in sequential form that life magazine rejected time after time. Robert Capa saw things as action. He couldn't print worth a damn. But did that detract from his importance as a photographer? No! Ansel Adams is held as a candle to be measured against because his flame is bright and he is well known by a great many people both photographer and non-photographer alike. But within the photographic commuinity, the likes of Smith, Bourke-White, Capa, Decarava, Spirer, ect. become a different candle to be measured against. Neither better or worse. More nor less important. When you only see one genre of images as "the best" or "better than" you are limiting you vision. I know because I limited myself for a long time. But I grew and now my eyes see so much more. Don't limit your horizon. Look at it all. It's all good. Not better or worse but just different. james
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Bill Mitchell
(K=659) - Comment Date 3/31/2000
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Kings come and go. When I was learning photography the king was Steichen. Before him it had been Steiglitz. Soon it will be someone else. Adams' photographs may or may not endure, but his unique contribution to our craft is his writing. Prolific, technically authoratative, and most of all accessable, a whole generation of photographers has been taught in the "Adams School." In the absence of such competative writings by others, "Ansel says" has become final arbiter of unquestionable dogma. Weston, Strand, Gene Smith and others may have produced greater works of art than Adams (that remains to be seen), but they have contributed little or nothing to the craft. Thus, while the title of king is transitory, the irreverent and grudgingly affectionately bestowed title of SAINT ANSEL is likely to endure.
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Jeff Spirer
(K=1973) - Comment Date 3/31/2000
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Kings come and go.
No they don't. Elvis has always been The King. It doesn't matter if he was good or bad, it's his title. Regardless of what James says about my photographs.
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james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 4/1/2000
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And for the record, Jeff is one who is helping me see into the street. It's tough but worth it. James
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Struan Gray
(K=1802) - Comment Date 4/3/2000
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I see those who disparage Ansel Adams as being rather like those who denigrate Mozart and Monet. He's an easy target.
If I have a criticism of Adams' images, it is that they have a limited emotional range: Silent Awe seems to be his universal reaction to natural phenomena. My own feelings about wilderness are more complex.
However, I'd rather be a master of one trade than Jack of All, and Adam's best images conjure up exactly the same feelings of inspirational wonderment that drew me to my most-loved hobby, alpine mountaineering.
There are some forms of art which challenge your preconceptions and force you to ask hard questions about yourself. Then there are those that stop you dead in your tracks with sheer overwhelming beauty. The wunderkammer approach might be less valued amoung the black-clad art intellectuals, but it gets my toes tingling.
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Mike Troxell
(K=242) - Comment Date 5/10/2000
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Ansel Adams was a great photographer. In fact, I have a 16x20 signed (ok, ok, initialed) print of Winter Sunrise that is one of my most prized possessions. But as great a photographer as Adams was, I think I would have to say he was the "king" because he was also a great businessman and marketer in regards to his photographs and because his photographs became associated with enviromental issues of the day. As good as Ansel Adams was, how many other photographers were there that were as good or better but never got, or more probably created, the breaks they needed to be recognized by the public. From reading his biography and "Letters" it seems that Adams was always a outgoing, very likable type of person who always knew the right thing to say. This is very often the exact opposite of many photographers and other artist who tend to shy away from the general public and the media.
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Charlie Harless
(K=105) - Comment Date 5/15/2000
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The fact that AA is the subject of this thread, and that so many people have taken the time to reply to it, should indicate that in the least AA was a powerful influence one way or the other. Although my own work is significantly different than AA's, I must admit that he has had a strong influence on me. Some good and some not so good.
I like to look at Ansel's work once in a while, but then I like to look at many other artists work also. Everyone has a place, but to put a crown on any one artist's head is a distraction to the medium.
It's no different than trying to pick the best baseball player, or best guitarist, or prettiest woman. It's more important to look at the work, to make your own work, to be your own king.
RIP Ansel.
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josh
(K=292) - Comment Date 5/15/2000
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"Ansel is the scientist, I am the primitive." Brett Weston not word for word but pretty close josh
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David A. M. Wallbank
(K=2) - Comment Date 6/23/2001
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AA= big negs, big views, small heart, small aperture... I love the technique but Come the revolution lets crown someone with passion! but how would I know? my playlist goes from Bach to Beefheart.
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Walt Cleveland
(K=30) - Comment Date 9/11/2001
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David A. M. Wallbank. Through some very fortuitous circumstances and friendships with some of Ansel's assistants, among them King Dexter and Alan Ross, I was able to meet and spend time with Ansel on a personal level. Your minimalist characterization of Ansel may or may not be particularly thoughtful, but I couldn't disagree more with regard to his heart, or his passion.
Ansel was not motivated by the fame or fortune that came his way in his later life. A fame that was on the most part created, nurtured and manipulated by those around him but not particularly close to him. In fact, he was a bit bewildered by all of it.
Over a period of time I had many telephone conversations with Ansel in the capacity of providing him with photography related services. I do not tend towards star struck and by the time I met Ansel in person I had spoken with him often enough to get the distinct impression that he was not a person absorbed in his own image. In fact, Ansel always impressed me with a passion for what he did that went beyond the process and well into a relationship that encompassed far more than just the mechanics of making a photographic image. It is too bad that most people identify Ansel with his landscape work and know little of the massive amount of work he did in just about every other photographic format there was. Then again, this public perception of Ansel was and still is to some extent a fabrication and manipulation by others. This is not to say that there is malice or dishonesty at work by others, although there certainly is a bit of soap opera with regard to the way some people around Ansel have acted at times. But the fact is that Ansel often found himself as a hesitant participant in his "fame".
I'll leave the analysis of Ansel to others who feel the need to analyze. Perhaps my personal contact with Ansel has left me with a different take on who he was and what he was like. Of all the people who speak of and analyze Ansel, I suspect most never met him outside of public events or during other somewhat impersonal circumstances. Perhaps some met him through his holiday parties (ended with the Gong and Virginia politely ushering people out the door, in some cases to be chauffeured to their cars in her white Cadillac). Then there are the people who remained after the rest had left. I was fortunate enough, on occasion, to be among those who remained and spent time with Ansel when the public spotlight was extinguished. The person I spent time with was not a saint, a "king" or anything else even remotely on such an elevated level of self importance. The Ansel I knew was personable, friendly and always willing to share his passion with others. He had endless stories, displayed a practically childlike enthusiasm for the things he did and in general came across as just plain folk. I didn't meet Ansel face to face until he was in his seventies, but even then he was a robust person with a surprisingly firm grip and a ready smile who seemed to savor the opportunity to bring someone with similar interests into his world.
As for his heart, well it wasn't small but it did have a pig valve in it, which Ansel said left him with a strange aversion to eating pork for the rest of his life.
Did Ansel make the best photographs of all time? No. Not in his own mind and not by consensus. Ansel is another spirit, among many, upon whom I call from time to time as I pursue my visions. Just some personal observations.
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