Re: [Leica] Ansel Adams/John Wimberley WAS Mapplethorpe, high quailty porn

[Dean Chance <mreyebal@pacbell.net>]

on 12/4/00 3:52 PM, Johnny Deadman at john@pinkheadedbug.com wrote:

> 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.")
> 
> 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 was once shocked to see a quote from Elliott Erwitt which went, in part,
"...this is not the same thing as the quality of Ansel Adams, which, if I
may say so, is the quality of a postcard." It always seemed that Adams was
beyond criticism, particularly here in Northern California. The shock came
from seeing that an actual photographer agreed with my amateur opinion. I
viewed some of his large prints at a gallery in Carmel a few times and,
postcard or not, the technique IS totally amazing. But, yes, all too often I
felt they were pictures OF something, not pictures ABOUT something. I had a
different reaction to Weston's peppers, which to me seemed to be about the
mystery of creation. I don't know if I could defend either of these
positions in a debate. All I can say is that it's a tough racket and even
the greats churn out crap at times. The difference between me and Ansel
Adams is that, with me, it's pretty much all crap.

Dean Chance