[Leica] Re: Ansel Adams

[imagist3 at mac.com (Lottermoser George)]

I totally understand
preferring one genre of photography over another.
Or one genre of music over another.
Or sculpture.
Or poetry.
Or painting.
Or?

I totally do not understand
being "left cold" by any genre of photography.
Or music.
Or sculpture.
Or poetry.
Or painting.
Or?
when accomplished by a masterful hand and mind.

Fond regards,
George

george@imagist.com
http://www.imagist.com
http://www.imagist.com/blog
http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist



On Dec 21, 2008, at 11:16 PM, Ted Grant wrote:

>
>
> Alan Magayne-Roshak offered in answer to George Lottermoser::
>
> Subject: [Leica] Re: Ansel Adams
>
>
>
> On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 Lottermoser George <imagist3@mac.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes. It can get in the way of "soul."
>
>> Many find Ansel's work "cold"
>
>> I find his technical mastery
>
>> the "soul" of his work; when seen in original print form.
>
> =======================================
>
> Alan said:
>
>>> I'm one of those people.  Adam's pictures leave ME
>
> cold. <<<
>
>
>
> I have to say at the expense of maybe receiving ticking boxes via  
> the post..
> The only thing that I thought was any good about his "Rock & Fern  
> stuff. OH
> Yeah, mountains and moon light was?"
>
>
>
> "He was without question the coolest darkroom technician in town!"
>
>
>
> 58 years ago when I first seriously began my photographer fun  
> thing, his
> work was hot stuff in all the photo magazines. I thought .. "gee  
> this guy is
> real good at taking pictures of mountains and stuff in parks, I  
> better learn
> everything I can about how he does it!" That was it, the more I  
> read about
> him and his "ZONE system" the less interested I became!
>
>
>
> I realized he was a "shoot & soup" one sheet of film at a time,  
> learn this
> zone system thing that appeared OK for rocks, ferns and mountains  
> not going
> anywhere. And I began to realize he was one of the smartest "photo  
> how to
> salesmen ever!" Buy into my system for a few dollars more and he  
> sold it
> extremely well!  His real prints are without question absolutely
> magnificent!
>
> A darkroom technician unparalleled! Both film processing and printing.
>
>
>
> I suppose the biggest detriment of my following him was... "I  
> wanted to
> shoot for LIFE magazine and the other picture magazines around in  
> those
> early days." And it didn't appear they were big on mountains and  
> ferns!  Nor
> was he and his zone system really into 35mm, 36 exposure rolls of  
> film.
>
>
>
> His photography has never given me goose bumps of worldly  
> excitement as it
> seems it does for fine art people. The prints are technically as  
> perfect as
> it's possible to achieve, but they leave me as excited as a fish  
> frozen in
> ice! And I don't think it gets much colder than that.
>
>
>
> But then I get big goose bumps of admiration over the photography of
> Eisenstaedt, Ralph Morse, George Silk and the others of the early  
> years of
> LIFE! Now they were real photographers and masters of the photographic
> moments!
>
>
>
> ted
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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