Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/04
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on 3/12/00 4:04 pm, Dean Chance at mreyebal@pacbell.net wrote:
> As for the complaints that Mapplethorpe is technically adept photographer
> who is only well-known because of his subject matter...well, couldn't you
> say the same of Ansel Adams? ("He's only famous because he took pictures of
> Yosemite. It's all high-class nature porn.")
Well, I happen to think you're exactly right about Ansel Adams. I am full of
respect for the old bugger because technically he has all the answers, and
he had an enormous heart, I'm sure of that. But to me there is a complete
emptiness at the heart of many (not all) of his pictures. All those
photographs of half dome... again and again... and churches and receding
mountain vistas... there definitely IS something of pornography in it... in
the sense of repetitious exploitation of subject matter. Most people
remember half a dozen of Ansel Adams' pictures... clearing winter storm, the
famous desert pic, black sun, moonrise over hernandez, the 1927 el capitan
picture...and some of those are indeed great and (somewhat) moving images.
BUT the great majority of his work simply does not get anywhere near these
standards. He is a photographic wordsworth in many ways... a man who
attempted to penetrate the sublime and occasionally did but who more often
fell victim to his own prosaic limits, without ever really celebrating them.
I don't know if any of you here know the pictures of John Wimberley, who is
in some ways a protege of Ansel Adams. They've recently been featured in
VIEW CAMERA and LENSWORK. Wimberley is a bit of a mystic and recently came
out and said openly that he thought he'd met the spirit of Ansel Adams on
top of a mountain. His pictures are clearly influenced by Adams but to me
they show a spiritual element (what he's aiming at) that Adams only achieved
intermittently. Interestingly, like Adams, he's a real technique-guy... he
says (correctly I think) that to catch an elephant you can dig a big hole,
but to catch a butterfly you must weave a fine net.
- --
Johnny Deadman
http://www.pinkheadedbug.com