[Leica] Re: Ansel Adams - Erwitt's statement

[pklein at threshinc.com (Peter Klein)]

George, you're right, Erwitt's jab *is* ridiculously glib. Let's try to
put it in context.

We have to remember that Adams was a generation older than Erwitt.  In the
30s and 40s, both Adams' almost Wagnerian interpretation of the American
West and the level to which he quantified the process of photography were
relatively new and unique things. By the time Erwitt came of age, an Adams
landscape was an established norm that newer artists were reacting
against.

The Zone System was just a codification of things Adams had worked out in
practice. His followers turned it into a One True Faith. Of course a
photographer like Erwitt would find that nonsense--by the time you could
think "N-1," the moments that most Erwitt images captured would be gone.
Plus, Erwitt wasn't interested in grand landscapes.  He was interested in
people, dogs, oddball moments and quirky juxtapositions.

Lots of photographic trends become ridiculous at the hands of the
faithful. Remember the "I never crop" fetish of the HCB followers, which
included filing black border space into your negative carrier?  Then we
found out that HCB did in fact crop.

My own way of photographing is much more like Erwitt's than like Adams,
but I appreciate Adams, too.

I had the good fortune to see an exhibit of Adams' prints (in Las Vegas,
no less!), along with some of his equipment and letters.  In his letters,
I found a man who was as much an emotional artist as the most unablashed
Romantic.  It's just that he developed a painstaking method that gave him
the best chance of capturing what he saw.

Here's a good article placing Adams in perspective:
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/ansel-adams-but-is-it-art-749574.html>

I remember an article in the old "Camera 35", probably by David Vestal. He
had a dream where he was trying to photograph a subject with particularly
challenging dynamic range.  The Adams' ghost appeared to him and whispered
in his ear:  "Bracket."

--Peter

George wrote:

> I too love what Erwitt notices and how he presents it to us.
> He notices visual irony at a very sophisticated and humorous level.
> He has a unique and uncanny ability in noticing what he does.
>
> "Photography is simply a function of noticing things.
> Nothing more." - Elliott Erwitt
>
> Ridiculously glib. Probably (hopefully) taken out of a larger context.
>
> All photographs "notice things."
> True enough. So what?
>
> Noticing unique and/or universal qualities in a subject;
> precise relevant moments;
> whether humorous, tragic, elegant, ironic, or whatever;
> the convergence of lines, shapes and forms into striking compositions;
> the balance of tones and/or colors;
> the use of textures and rhythms;
> then putting those notices
> onto a two dimensional surface
> in a way which actively communicates to the viewer of that piece of paper
> what, with a bit of why, you noticed;
> goes well beyond "simply a function of noticing things."
>
> And none of the above touches on the technical skill set
> required to achieve, in print, that which we "simply noticed."