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

[Mark Rabiner <mark@rabiner.cncoffice.com>]

Johnny Deadman 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.")
> 
> 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.><Snip> 


Jeeze!! does " Ansel Adams" and "pornography" belong in the same paragraph?
Let's ask Susan Sontag!!
For me the answer would be… let me see… NO!!!!!!!  NON!!!
I don't catch the repetitiousness and unfeelingfullness of Ansels work.
These qualities elude me.
Some if it is grandiose but it's GOOD grandiose and hell the think what he was
shooting WAS grandiose and what the hell is wrong with grandiose???!!!!
Ansel goes for the big effect. He's not into boring subtlety You WILL look at
his images for more than one second. This does set him up for employment with
Larry Flynt.

mark rabiner
:)
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