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

[imagist3 at mac.com (Lottermoser George)]

Very nicely articulated Peter; great context.
The only piece you missed: Adams and Weston et al
also worked (somewhat in harmony as the f:64 group)
revolting against the pictorialist's romantic view
of people, places and things; making them
cutting edge and going against the current trends.

Fond regards,
George

george@imagist.com
http://www.imagist.com
http://www.imagist.com/blog
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On Dec 23, 2008, at 3:22 PM, Peter Klein wrote:

> 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."
>
>
>
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