Overrated photographers...

Brian Sweeney said:
But Roger- how many photographers actually let plates soak in Mercury vapors befor using them, made custom dodge and burn tools, messed with the chemicals to get results wanted?
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Dear Brian,

Quite a few. Mercury hypersensitization was well enough known to feature in Popular Science in 1938: the normal citation is F. Dersch and H. Durr, J. Soc. Mot. Pict. Eng. 28, 178 (1937).

Custom dodge and burn tools go back to the dawn of enlarging (and indeed to contact printing for doging), and 'messing with chemicals' goes back to Talbot an the invention of pos-neg photography.

I have most of the standard texts on photographic chemistry (Glafkides, Haist, Neblette, etc.) and I do not recall a single citation of Adams as an inventor of a process. There may be some, but I have not seen them.

Cheers,

R.
 
PKR said:
Adams and Minor White set up the photo Dept. at The San Francisco Art Institute. I thought that they were both credited with "popularizing" the Zone System, but weren't credited with the "invention" (if you can call it that). I don't remember the inventors name, but do remember reading about the guy.. I think someone on the periphery of the f 64 group?

Adams, if nothing else, was one of the world's best b+w printers. If you have never seen one of his prints, with out a piece of glass in front of it, it's something to see. I have never been able to produce the range of tones from a negative that Adams could.
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The naming of Zones is generally credited to AA but there may be others: I don't know. The sensitometry on which it was based was done by Hurter and Driffield in 1890.

Yes, I have seen AA prints (admitedly only a few). And I was underwhelmed. The worst I ever saw was a Hasselblad shot -- Half Dome, as far as I recall -- which was grotesquely over-enlarged. Mapplethorpe's prints are at least as good in my book, even though I do not usually care greatly for the subject matter.

The thing is, I can't get excited about someone being a great printer, when their reputation is as a great photographer. I prefer AA's early advertising work for both composition and tonality, but I can see why he chucked it in for faux-wilderness shots. After all, which would you go for, given the choice?

Cheers,

R.
 
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Can't really say who I don't like. Some subjects like nudes and portraits of famous people aren't really my cup of tea. Seems too contrived.

I do like Langes' WPA work, Egglestons' Memphis work, and Adams' wilderness work, along with Rowell.
 
Roger Hicks said:
The naming of Zones is generally credited to AA but there may be others: I don't know. The sensitometry on which it was based was done by Hurter and Driffield in 1890.

Yes, I have seen AA prints (admitedly only a few). And I was underwhelmed. The worst I ever saw was a Hasselblad shot -- Half Dome, as far as I recall -- which was grotesquely over-enlarged. Mapplethorpe's prints are at least as good in my book, even though I do not usually care greatly for the subject matter.

The thing is, I can't get excited about someone being a great printer, when their reputation is as a great photographer. I prefer AA's early advertising work for both composition and tonality, but I can see why he chucked it in for faux-wilderness shots. After all, which would you go for, given the choice?

Cheers,

R.
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I won't get involved with the "art" as that is a personal thing in my opinion. As far as prints go, I've used examples of Adams prints as a baseline for my own printing. One of his printers worked for me for a couple of years. I think it's possible that "others" are printing Adams work. I've personally seen one "extremely well printed forgery of Moon Rise". Adams, often signed the mat-board on which his prints were dry-mounted. He also signed the backs of unmounted prints. Once framed, unless a window is cut in the back of the frame to reveal the signature.. it's guessing. Not to say he didn't (or that people who worked for him) produce any bad prints. I've never seen one that I knew was printed by him. I don't know if you've ever seen the photo of Adams ripping apart (a large number of large prints) sub-standard prints of Moon Rise. At the time it was easily several hundred thousand dollars worth of prints. He was a picky guy about print quality.
 
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lacavol said:
Can't really say who I don't like. Some subjects like nudes and portraits of famous people aren't really my cup of tea. Seems too contrived.

I do like Langes' WPA work, Egglestons' Memphis work, and Adams' wilderness work, along with Rowell.
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For nudes try Willy Ronis's 1949 portrait of his wife, Marie-Anne Lasciaux, http://www.expo-shop.com/2_2.cfm?cfid=33044&cftoken=81874372&id=-115862664. NOT contrived, and for my money probably the most beautiful (and tender, and loving) nude photo of all time. I had the good fortune to see an original print at Arles 2009, just after discovering that M. Ronis himself was at the exhibition.

NOTE: Link failed. Just Google 'Provencal Nude' or 'Nu Provençal', or try http://www.unframe.com/en/news/events/271-goodbye-willy-ronis.html and ignore the iron toning.

Cheers,

R.
 
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PKR said:
I won't get involved with the "art" as that is a personal thing in my opinion. As far as prints go, I've used examples of Adams prints as a baseline for my own printing. One of his printers worked for me for a couple of years. I think it's possible that "others" are printing Adams work. I've personally seen one "extremely well printed forgery of Moon Rise". Adams, often signed the mat-board on which his prints were dry-mounted. He also signed the backs of unmounted prints. Once framed, unless a window is cut in the back of the frame to reveal the signature.. it's guessing. Not to say he didn't (or that people who worked for him) produce any bad prints. I've never seen one that I knew was printed by him. I don't know if you've ever seen the photo of Adams ripping apart (a large number of large prints) sub-standard prints of Moon Rise. At the time it was easily several hundred thousand dollars worth of prints. He was a picky guy about print quality.
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The print I'm thinking of was under armed guard and had a cast-iron provenance. You're absolutely right: he was usually brilliant -- and you're also right that it wasn't always the case. It's just that after all the hype, I was expecting a different order of creation, and I've yet to see it. Yes, he was one of the finest printers in the world, but only 'one of'. Bob Carlos Clarke's still lifes were at least as good, and so were his nudes/fetish shots if you like that sort of thing.

My feeling is that if picture relies too much on technical excellence, so you notice the print quality before you notice the picture, it is as much a failure as a picture where you say, "Great picture, shame it wasn't printed better."

In other words, a print need only be 'good enough', and most of the great prints I've seen (Brandt, Giacomelli, Thomas Jorion) have been just that: I didn't notice the print quality, because it wasn't important next to the picture. It was more than good enough. But when the print quality is worse than you'd see in a book, you start wondering...

Cheers,

R.
 
To declare something as "Over-Rated", that means that the work must be rated by the individual. The metric that is given seems to be popularity on a world-wide basis, rather than just in the country of origin.

Who would bother downloading a photo of the moon rising over some canyon in a far away place rather than looking at a picture of bikini-clad lesbian lovers. If you want a metric for world-wide appeal, that is about it.
 
Ansel Adams and Fred Archer formulated the Zone System at the end of the 30s. Ansel freely admitted it was simply applied sensitometry. They did not "invent" sensitometry, they just arranged it in a specific context.

I do not know of many fields where an idea was totally unique that it existed independent of previous ideas or work.
 
I think in the process of "overrating" comes "mythologizing." Superlatives like the "world's best..." get attached. And when you ascribe it to a very subjective process, it makes no sense. I can kind of understand in regards to aesthetic qualities, van Gogh and Ornette Coleman come to mind, but I can't see it really fitting technical mastery like printing.
 
Brian Sweeney said:
To declare something as "Over-Rated", that means that the work must be rated by the individual. The metric that is given seems to be popularity on a world-wide basis, rather than just in the country of origin.

Who would bother downloading a photo of the moon rising over some canyon in a far away place rather than looking at a picture of bikini-clad lesbian lovers. If you want a metric for world-wide appeal, that is about it.
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Dear Brian,

That's what I'm getting at. World-wide popularity is often based on ignorance and 'winner take all'. National/regional popularity is usually even worse. If people knew about a few other names than the Usual Suspects (especially AA and HCB) then they might agree that while AA and HCB were very great photographers, so were plenty of others, and that AA and HCB do not tower above the rest of creation in the way that some people seem to think. If they do not tower as high above the rest of creation as people think, on average (in other words, as much as 'everyone thinks'), then by definition, they are overrated. And the reason they are overrated is because people don't know about the other names. Anyone who's heard of HCB but not Doisneau, Ronis, Brandt, Petrussow, Kertesz, Lewis W. Hine, Rodchenko, Walker Evans, Lange, Eisenstadt and Brassai doesn't know enough to set Cartier-Bresson in context, and will probably overrate him as a result.

Cheers,

R.
 
Finder said:
I think in the process of "overrating" comes "mythologizing." Superlatives like the "world's best..." get attached. And when you ascribe it to a very subjective process, it makes no sense. I can kind of understand in regards to aesthetic qualities, van Gogh and Ornette Coleman come to mind, but I can't see it really fitting technical mastery like printing.
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Perfectly explained. Someone is overrated as soon as they are mythologized. Thanks.

Cheers,

R.
 
Then we are back to downloads from Photo.net as being the only worthwhile metric accepted on a world-wide basis.

By any reasonable metric of success, Ansel Adams is not over-rated.

Now, in my opinion, Les Krims was over-rated. Sexploitation, then in vogue- spawned a revolution of its own.

http://cgi.ebay.com/LES-KRIMS-Original-Signed-Photograph-1971-RARE-/140440032344

Get an original, signed copy for only $1,000.
 
Brian,

Adams is a good photographer, but there are more interesting photographers to me and others all around the world. Why does it affect you as much as to talk about my photography, and about a photograph of mine you've never seen? (Or myself, as I haven't even finished shooting that roll...)

All those photographers which are considered more relevant to the history of photography than Adams, have no relation with sexuality: all that's in your mind only... We all prefer them over Adams because of their free spirits and their free minds. Adams is a technician and likes as all of us beautiful landscapes, but others like Atget or Bresson or Frank are masters in two deeper fields: human emotions and art: lyricism, metaphora, more than one single literal sense behind an image... That's their richness, and that's why generations prefer them over the more pictorialist and reproductive Adams.

My image of the two girls has no relation with sexuality, but with the joys of a healthy mind... I know it can make some people feel their limits even if they can't see them clearly: that's why I felt so very happy shooting it.

Cheers,

Juan
 
Again- Rated using what metric?

If you want to rate something, use a metric to rate it. The modern metric is sales volume or downloads. Adams photographs still sell at a reasonable rate to be judged as successful. Using photo.net as a source, the metric "Sort by Views" is an easy metric to judge popularity of a photographer.

Sex Sells. Most other online photographers are fooling themselves.
 
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