>===== Original Message From Winsor Crosby <wincros@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> =====
>These discussions are interesting. I tend to think that Ansel would
>never have succeeded as an artist without craft , but he was
>certainly more than a craftsman. Maybe it is a powerful vision which
>communicates in an original way to many that lifts craft to the level
>of art. And of course art is a thing of fashion and hype as well, so
>that talk of universals may be silly. Who really cares about abstract
>expressionism anymore and who listens to Salieri's music today except
>as a curiosity? And Ansel's work may be considered a curious
>infatuation of the late 20th century in a 100 years because different
>things will be important to people then.
Somebody referred to Adams (this was when he was living) as "our greatest 19th
century photographer." James Watts of course tried to minimize the tendency of
Adams' photography to suppport conservation and "Sierra Club" issues by saying
"There are no people in Adams' photographs," so that if you like what Adams'
likes, real folks are going to get no benefit from the environment. Both
people I think understood something about Adams' work that was real enough
(and in both cases they found it disturbing).
It is really hard to know what will stand the test of time. I do think that
B&W is the poetry of photography and invites (and often rewards) sustained
study and reflection. One huge difference between a photographer and a poet,
however, is that we don't usually marvel at the technical skill of a writer.
Instead I think we are wishing for a kind of transparency through which we see
things that are difficult otherwise to see, by which the words themselves
dissolve as the truth or idea or feeling that we apprehend becomes revealed.
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