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Re: [OM] So you guys think you are old school when you use film?

Subject: Re: [OM] So you guys think you are old school when you use film?
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2016 17:13:11 -0800
On 2/5/2016 2:14 PM, Ken Norton wrote:
AA was also known for not just circling dates on his calendar, but for
watching the weather. He had his locations scoped out and when
conditions were favorable, would scoot to them for the photographs.

There was a point where he was shooting with the 'Blads a lot for
commercial work. In fact, for a good decade or so, that was almost all
he shot. He was known to carry the LF gear in the vehicle, but was far
more prolific with the 'Blads. It really depended more on the
movements required for framing the shots than format preference. But
during that particular era, the style of the photographs changed quite
a bit as you can tell that he was shooting to the strengths of the
format. There were many more "subject shots" than "scenics" in that
era.

I would challenge His Mooseness as to where the artistry was between
the named photographers in his list.

We don't have to agree about the details. My only real point was that the Jack White aphorism you quoted, "Convenience is the enemy of creativity" is too simplistic to be useful as a guide for most artists. By engaging in the discussion, I think you have agreed ... ;-)

While AA did much of his magic in the darkroom, he was the type of COMMERCIAL 
PHOTOGRAPHER that was able
to provide soup-to-nuts services.

Have you seen his commercial photography? I have seen some in person, technically flawless, dull and boring. There may be other such work that isn't, but based on what I've seen, he never became a good photographer of people.

A great deal of his commercial income came from Kodak, as a consultant, much/most never made public. Much of that work was in color, as the Big K worked on improving Kodachrome. He both loved and hated KR, reveling in the beauty of an 8x10 transparency and deeply frustrated at having no way to get a decent print, let alone a great one. Ansel Adams in Color is an important book, in my view. A beautifully printed selection from his vast amount of never published color work, accompanied by useful excerpts from his writing on the subject.

It show him as an excellent photographer in color, all of his mastery of subject, light, tonalities and so on joined by a good sense of color. It doesn't seem to me, based on this selection, that he reached the heights of Eliot Porter, or Galen Rowell, to name a couple of masters of outdoor color of the sort of subjects St. Ansel did so wonderfully in B&W, but it's excellent work.

His darkroom was not a hobby, it was
a commercial business. He had people working for him. In the later
years, when he was doing most of his writing and teaching, he was into
semi-retirement and was no longer the prolific commercial photographer
that he had been. While AA might have controlled or contributed to a
lot of the darkroom work, his workerbees did a lot of the work for
him. In the production of a "piece of art", AA was always intimately
involved in it, but it is important to keep in mind that it was always
business first.

How is this different than the photojournalists on Moose's list? Are
they less of artists because they outsourced the printing? Of course
not. However, the printers involved were known for their own level of
mastership and artistry. While not DIRECTLY employed by the
photographers, they work with the photographers in a way not too
unlike AA and his workerbees.

Just sayin', convenience is not necessarily the enemy of creativity. :-)

Me? I just muddle along.

Moi Aussi Moose

--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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