Roger Hicks
Veteran
They're a bunch of sociologists with cameras." Ansel Adams's description of the Farm Security Administration photographers, as quoted by Stryker and Wood in In This Proud Land: America 1935-1943, as Seen in the FSA Photographs page 8.
I have not verified this quote (can anyone?) but it seems believable: AA was very blinkered at times. It's not hard to turn the tables and come up with equally (or more) damning descriptions: AA wasn't a photographer, but a deceitful romantic propagandist who was obsessed with technique ('deceitful' because his 'wilderness' shots were normally places he could get to in his pick-up truck).
Both AA's reported observation and my made up one are of course nonsense. But why did he feel threatened enough to say that? And who has had more influence on (a) American photography and (b) world photography? AA or the FSA? I know who I'd back.
Cheers,
R.
I have not verified this quote (can anyone?) but it seems believable: AA was very blinkered at times. It's not hard to turn the tables and come up with equally (or more) damning descriptions: AA wasn't a photographer, but a deceitful romantic propagandist who was obsessed with technique ('deceitful' because his 'wilderness' shots were normally places he could get to in his pick-up truck).
Both AA's reported observation and my made up one are of course nonsense. But why did he feel threatened enough to say that? And who has had more influence on (a) American photography and (b) world photography? AA or the FSA? I know who I'd back.
Cheers,
R.
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Jamie123
Veteran
I think a photographer is always a ____ with a camera. Whatever fills the blank usually determines what said person aims his camera at. I think AA's quote is not so much controversial as it is plain stupid.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Harry S.
Well-known
I always had the impression that AA was pretty self-absorbed with an over-inflated ego. I think he was technically superior to most photographers but lacked any real creative streak.
"The world is falling apart and Ansel Adams is out photographing rocks!" H.C.B, circa 1939.
"The world is falling apart and Ansel Adams is out photographing rocks!" H.C.B, circa 1939.
Both made significant contributions for sure, so I'm not going to diss either, but I prefer the FSA work.
dazedgonebye
Veteran
I didn't take the AA quote as an insult...do we know it was meant as one?
I've often thought of photography as half anthropology.
I've often thought of photography as half anthropology.
dave lackey
Veteran
Hmmm...makes one wonder what AA must have said about Bresson.
damien.murphy
Damien
I only see a problem, if being regarded as an ______ with a camera is actually a bad thing. I think most of us would prefer to be individuals exploring something through our camera, rather than simply someone who makes pretty pictures. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, and thats where the real value of photo technique comes in for me (in being able to realise what you see, on your camera), but I would definitely prefer to be inspired rather than simply well trained. Being both, obviously being the ideal, but then necessity, mother, invention, and all that..
oftheherd
Veteran
It has been a long time since I read anything about AA. But my recollection is that for a long time he wasn't that well known outside a few photographers and the Sierra Club. He had some photographs that I really liked, especially in b/w. But I have never thought that just because he took a photo, that it was to be considered great.
The Farm Administration photogs had two advantages, the backing of the government, and the photo magazines desire for good and free photos. They did have a lot of technically great photos, as well as very poignant photos. But I have no idea what percentage of their photos fall into that category. From my personal point of view, I suspect they had more than AA, but I'm sure there are those that would disagree.
EDIT: Well after the posts about Manzanar below, I need to change what I said. I just don't know exactly what to change it to. Obviously AA did a good documentary, much in his style. I like what I see there better than most of his landscape work.
The Farm Administration photogs had two advantages, the backing of the government, and the photo magazines desire for good and free photos. They did have a lot of technically great photos, as well as very poignant photos. But I have no idea what percentage of their photos fall into that category. From my personal point of view, I suspect they had more than AA, but I'm sure there are those that would disagree.
EDIT: Well after the posts about Manzanar below, I need to change what I said. I just don't know exactly what to change it to. Obviously AA did a good documentary, much in his style. I like what I see there better than most of his landscape work.
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ferider
Veteran
Strange thread, Roger.
I'm sure you are aware of "Suffering under a Great Injustice", Adams documentary work on Manzanar ?
I agree .... referring to whoever does the quote, and for whatever purpose.
Adams did social critique. Bresson shot landscapes. Life is more complex than that.
I'm sure you are aware of "Suffering under a Great Injustice", Adams documentary work on Manzanar ?
I agree .... referring to whoever does the quote, and for whatever purpose.
Adams did social critique. Bresson shot landscapes. Life is more complex than that.
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Lilserenity
Well-known
I'd take being a sociologist with a camera as a compliment any day of the week.
Whilst photography is the medium that best expresses how I see and want to describe the world around me, the driving force is not really for the picture alone; I want to have understood something about the place around me more so than the picture alone. The picture is just a physical manifestation of that feeling at that moment in time or the capturing of a fleeting experience that needs some permanence to make it resonate both with myself on a longer term basis but also so that others might see it too.
That might sound a bit la-de-da (which it is) but it makes perfect sense with the kind of photography I revel in (the more urban stuff that is, this doesn't apply to my landscapes, that's just aesthetics through and through for me.)
Vicky
Whilst photography is the medium that best expresses how I see and want to describe the world around me, the driving force is not really for the picture alone; I want to have understood something about the place around me more so than the picture alone. The picture is just a physical manifestation of that feeling at that moment in time or the capturing of a fleeting experience that needs some permanence to make it resonate both with myself on a longer term basis but also so that others might see it too.
That might sound a bit la-de-da (which it is) but it makes perfect sense with the kind of photography I revel in (the more urban stuff that is, this doesn't apply to my landscapes, that's just aesthetics through and through for me.)
Vicky
stratcat
Well-known
Hmmm...makes one wonder what AA must have said about Bresson.
In a well known video from the BBC Master Photographers series, he was very complimentary of Cartier-Bresson and called him "The Supreme Anticipator".
Bob Michaels
nobody special
Has anyone else seen Ansel Adams' documentary work he did of people in the Japanese-American interment camps during WWII? Very different from his landscapes. Available at the Library of Congress website. They appear to be not copyrighted and public domain, similar to the FSA photographs.
Was Ansel Adams possibly envious of the quality of the work the FSA people did? I suspect not.
edit: This is the work Ferider referred to a few posts back when he said: I'm sure you are aware of "Suffering under a Great Injustice", Adams documentary work on Manzanar ? Give Ferider credit for mentioning it first.
Was Ansel Adams possibly envious of the quality of the work the FSA people did? I suspect not.
edit: This is the work Ferider referred to a few posts back when he said: I'm sure you are aware of "Suffering under a Great Injustice", Adams documentary work on Manzanar ? Give Ferider credit for mentioning it first.
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willie_901
Veteran
It occurs to me: if the FSA photographers started out as sociologists, they ended up being historians.
Colin Corneau
Colin Corneau
Is this quote confirmed, or not? I'm reserving statements til I know.
That said, either are valid. Not worse or better, just different goals and differing methods. Not everyone can be a social crusader and not everyone can be a fine artist; a healthy society has both.
That said, either are valid. Not worse or better, just different goals and differing methods. Not everyone can be a social crusader and not everyone can be a fine artist; a healthy society has both.
Dr Gaspar
Established
This adds a lot to the conversation, in my opinion. Can you really say if somebody else's point of view is wrong? (taking H.C.B's and AA's quotes in consideration) you can have a different one, but I don't think there's right and a wrong way to see the world through a camera.
Sure, you can take good or bad photos, but is it fair to judge a point of view? I don't think so.
I'm taking AA's quote in a pejorative way by the way.
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semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
That comment drives the nail home in one blow.
As Ferider says, if you don't know Adams's work on Manzanar, you are missing a critical piece of the puzzle.
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Charlie Lemay
Well-known
Ansel Adams is the "brand" that nearly all my high school photo students already know when it comes to fine art photography. I like to shock them by saying he is not as significant artistically as his contemporaries like Edward Weston, Minor White or Imogen Cunningham. Though all photography is documentation, Adams Work as a whole "Adamizes" the lanscape with "Wagnerian" style and lacks real depth of vision. I have to confess, after seeing many Adams prints over the years, the only one that really moves me is a landscape from Manzanar, "Mount Williams, The Siera Nevada, from Manzanar, California, 1945."
I feel Adams' contribution is mainly technical. He is a giant for codifying Minor White's esoteric Zone System and puting it in a form that left brain types can relate to, thus creating a tradtion that continues. However as a artist, he falls short of many others. Adams does best when his subject matter is already amazing and beautiful, then he applies his signature filtration and exposure and development techniques to transform the place stylistically in operatic proportions. You could confine Edward Weston in your back yard for an hour, and he would make an image you never anticipated because he would "see" this environment through his unique personal vision. Adams would dissappoint you unless you already had a magnificent feature for him to "Adamize."
Adams is responsible for the "limited edition" print model being appropriated as the prime commercial model for phography in the fine art world. I think this is a shame. Photography was potentially a truly "democratic" art medium where images could be widely reproduced and distributed at very low cost compared to other two dimensional art forms. Adams deserves a lot of credit for championing photography as an art when the art world rejected it totally. Showing that photography had commercial viability helped create a market for the medium. Adams went so far as to punch holes in some of his negatives to assure collectors that these images could not be printed beyond their stated edition. This act horrifies me and may have killed the the possibilty for photography ever fulfilling it's unique "democratic" potential if not for the internet, which now makes any images made availble to all who can access a terminal.
Adams helped the Sierra Club make it's strongest, most visceral, appeal to the American government and it's people by showing what few had seen, and what would be lost forever, if the National Parks were not created to preserve it. This is a noble cause and a great accomplishment on it's own and enough to make Ansel Adams a revered photographer, but this is a two edged sword. By creating these special grand places, every other place is less, by definition, and so we are free to develope and exploit them commercially, as long as the pinnacle of nature is preserved. I imagine that there are precious Adams prints adorning the walls of some corporate polluters boardrooms were few can see the irony.*
So Adams is important, even essential, to photography, but his status in name recognition and as a blue chip investment do not make him important as a visionary. The accessibility of his vision may bring many into an appreciation of photography as an important medium and, with time, many of those might come to see there is more depth possible in photography than Adams ever touched on. That would be a good thing.
I feel Adams' contribution is mainly technical. He is a giant for codifying Minor White's esoteric Zone System and puting it in a form that left brain types can relate to, thus creating a tradtion that continues. However as a artist, he falls short of many others. Adams does best when his subject matter is already amazing and beautiful, then he applies his signature filtration and exposure and development techniques to transform the place stylistically in operatic proportions. You could confine Edward Weston in your back yard for an hour, and he would make an image you never anticipated because he would "see" this environment through his unique personal vision. Adams would dissappoint you unless you already had a magnificent feature for him to "Adamize."
Adams is responsible for the "limited edition" print model being appropriated as the prime commercial model for phography in the fine art world. I think this is a shame. Photography was potentially a truly "democratic" art medium where images could be widely reproduced and distributed at very low cost compared to other two dimensional art forms. Adams deserves a lot of credit for championing photography as an art when the art world rejected it totally. Showing that photography had commercial viability helped create a market for the medium. Adams went so far as to punch holes in some of his negatives to assure collectors that these images could not be printed beyond their stated edition. This act horrifies me and may have killed the the possibilty for photography ever fulfilling it's unique "democratic" potential if not for the internet, which now makes any images made availble to all who can access a terminal.
Adams helped the Sierra Club make it's strongest, most visceral, appeal to the American government and it's people by showing what few had seen, and what would be lost forever, if the National Parks were not created to preserve it. This is a noble cause and a great accomplishment on it's own and enough to make Ansel Adams a revered photographer, but this is a two edged sword. By creating these special grand places, every other place is less, by definition, and so we are free to develope and exploit them commercially, as long as the pinnacle of nature is preserved. I imagine that there are precious Adams prints adorning the walls of some corporate polluters boardrooms were few can see the irony.*
So Adams is important, even essential, to photography, but his status in name recognition and as a blue chip investment do not make him important as a visionary. The accessibility of his vision may bring many into an appreciation of photography as an important medium and, with time, many of those might come to see there is more depth possible in photography than Adams ever touched on. That would be a good thing.
KenR
Well-known
Of course, not everyone, even at the time, appreciated AA's approach to photography. It was HCB who said around the start of WWII "the world is going to hell, and Adams and Weston are taking pictures of rocks." I'm sure the FSA hands would have voiced similar sentiments. You can't please everybody.
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
There's so much wrong in your post, factually and interpretively, that I don't have time to unpack all the wrongness. I'll just touch on a couple of them.
1. MANY photographers including most importantly Steiglitz were responsible for the limited edition thing. And it's hardly something new -- printmakers had already been selling limited edition etchings, lithos, etc. for many decades before Steiglitz, Adams, and their contemporaries were on the scene.
2. Adams got more high quality photography into more peoples' hands than anyone up to that time. Not only through his books and prints, almost all of which had offset reproduction of the highest quality, but thorough the sale of very reasonably priced, un-numbered sliver gelatin prints at galleries in Carmel and Yosemite. One of those, purchased by my dad at Yosemite, is on my office wall.
3. Adams did indeed punch holes in a few negatives early in his career, but that's not the whole story. He later realized that doing so was a terrible mistake, and said so. It was one of his greatest regrets.
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