RE: [Leica] adams the myth - Yeth?

["Mueller, Rob" <rob.mueller@eds.com>]

I'm not sure who Eric is referring to me or John, but AA contact printed
every (or close to) negative for proofing. The fact he was making a living,
BTW, what was his living? making prints, taking exposures, giving lectures,
doing workshops. I don't know for sure, but he probably made a definite
choice when he printed the images he did for sale. and he was hounded to
continue printing the popular images. so he did. In his later years he
exposed less film and printed more. So theoretically he had more time to
print. What did he print? the popular images that provided him a living. Of
the 40k negatives that Eric says he made, how many was he printing over a
years time? figure 40-50 images in a days work (these are numbers gleaned
from talking with   John Sexton in the last few years,[I didn't call him to
get the data]) from a single negative, maybe two negatives as well as the
contact proofs his assistants made. with about 200 working days a year that
yields around 10,000 photos from about 200-300 negatives. Did he have 300
negatives that were popular or excellent? to me yes, to him probably. did he
have 1000 negs that were popular or excellent? to me yes, to him maybe not.
did he have 40k? no, not to me, not to him. 

The point is, how many did he want to print? dunno. how many did he print?
maybe Eric knows. Did we want to see more? yes. how many more? only as many
that were great. great to him? yes. because it was his vision that made them
great. Did he print all that he wanted to of his great prints from negatives
that are unknown? dunno. I hope so. 

Rob Mueller
Studies in Black and White
www.studiesinblackandwhite.com 
rob@studiesinblackandwhite.com





- -----Original Message-----
From: Eric Welch [mailto:ewelch@neteze.com]
Sent: Monday, November 22, 1999 11:29 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us; leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: [Leica] adams the myth - Yeth?


At 09:32 PM 11/22/1999 -0700, John Poirier wrote:
>On the other hand, think about how many equipment freaks go through an
>entire lifetime without producing one photograph as expressive as even
>the average of Adams' well-known work.
>
> > > take the number of great AA images, divide by his years of
photography,
> > and
> > > wince at how few they really are.

This is pure hogwash anyway. He archived about 40,000 negatives, the 
majority of which will never see the light of day. Why? Because he was too 
busy making a living to print them. That's a tragedy. And to insult him 
with such a lame argument is truly pitiful if it wasn't so wrong.

Eric Welch
Carlsbad, CA

http://www.neteze.com/ewelch

Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.