Ansel Adams Exhibit in Phoenix

vintagemxr

Thought I'd pass this link along to those in the Phoenix area who are Adams fans or interested in B&W photography and landscape photography:

Phoenix Art Museum
Ansel Adams: Discoveries
January 31, 2010 – June 6, 2010

Excellent exhibition of Adams' work, 140 images in total from his earliest days in the 1920s through his late career including some color images. Also some of his notes and materials are shown.

My wife and I took in the exhibit today and it was three hours well spent. This is the second time I've seen a large Adams exhibition and as always I found myself wondering "How'd he do that??" followed by a strong desire to throw away my camera and take up stamp collecting or something. Same thing happened when I saw his work for the first time 20+ years ago while I was taking B&W photography at the community college and trying to make alternately muddy or thin negatives look good in the dark room. Having even less common sense than photographic skill I pressed on then and shall again. Thank goodness for digital cameras!

Doug

DeeCajun

lol @ Stamp Collecting, I feel that way too... but if you read some of his stuff he struggled with color ( hence so much b & w AA photos) and he pretty much stuck to the basics... We tend to complicate things so much....

I would LOVE to go see the exhibit, I am going to look to see if it's coming my way...

Thanks for the info and don't put the camera away!

Scott_Quier

We had a much smaller exhibit of his work arrive here about 14 months ago (IIRC). There were, maybe, 50 of his images. The photo club to which I belong went as a group. You did the 140 images in 3 hours? How. I think I spent that much time with just the small traveling show and was, basically, pulled from the museum by my DW wanting to go get some dinner. Like you, I saw a lot that put my puny effort to shame. I also saw a lot of stuff that I (still) believe I can put to good use in my work. Time will tell.

wxwax

I saw an Adams exhibit in Las Vegas a few years ago.

What I noticed is that he has some pure blacks in his prints. No detail.

Now go to the gift shop and open up one of the books with his images. You'll notice that some editor somewhere decided to open up the darks and extract detail where Adams didn't want it. So the images in the souvenir books are different to the ones hanging on the wall.

If Weegee ever made prints of his work, I suspect the same might be true.

vintagemxr

Scott_Quier wrote:

We had a much smaller exhibit of his work arrive here about 14 months ago (IIRC). There were, maybe, 50 of his images. The photo club to which I belong went as a group. You did the 140 images in 3 hours? How. I think I spent that much time with just the small traveling show and was, basically, pulled from the museum by my DW wanting to go get some dinner. Like you, I saw a lot that put my puny effort to shame. I also saw a lot of stuff that I (still) believe I can put to good use in my work. Time will tell.

Had the Mrs. with me, she's a watercolor artist and she was anxious to see other parts of the museum while we were there. Go figure. Adam's last darkroom assistant, Alan Ross, who is still printing from some of Adams' original negatives at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite, will be speaking at the museum in March so I knew I'd be going back (alone) for another visit to the exhibit and to hear him speak.

I agree with you, the best way to view the exhibit of any master photographer is to see what can be learned even if it's unlikely that we'd ever equal the master. My wife pointed out from her painter perspective, some standard "composition mistakes" that Adams had made on a couple of images but they apparently didn't hold back his career much.

As for the number of images, in some ways there are almost too many to give each it's due. The color images were not really especially interesting to me. In the display notes by the color images they did mention that Adams was never satisfied with the color print processes and thought that his color transparencies should simply be displayed on their own. Some of the images, his earliest ones, are interesting but only in the context of his career and really were no better than any enthusiastic beginner's work might have been then. Seeing the development of his style and printing techniques was the best part of viewing his early work.

I spent more time looking at the seldom seen or published images than I did Adams' more classic work although I did spend a fair amount of time looking at his iconic "Moonliight" print. They had two "Moonlight" prints on display, each printed slightly differently and maybe more interesting, the negative (or what I would assume to be a copy of the negative) displayed along with his handwritten printing guide for "Moonlight." Anyone who's struggled in the darkroom with a print would find the negative and notes as interesting as the prints.

It would have been more fun to see the exhibit with another photographer so discussion could ensue as everyone has their own view on style, technique, etc. Anyone want to meet me there next week?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to going back. If it wasn't 45 miles from home and in downtown Phoenix (ugh!) I'd make several visits to the exhibition to really absorb what's there.

Doug