{"id":2613,"date":"2012-07-31T06:00:59","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T14:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=2613"},"modified":"2012-07-28T07:09:21","modified_gmt":"2012-07-28T15:09:21","slug":"ansel-adams-making-40-photographs-lodgepole-pines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2012\/07\/31\/ansel-adams-making-40-photographs-lodgepole-pines\/","title":{"rendered":"Ansel Adams – The Making of 40 Photographs: Lodgepole Pines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AA24-Lodgepole_Pines\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lodgepole Pines (1921)<\/p>\n

This Ansel Adams photograph has always stood out from the rest of his works.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t have the usual crispness or drama that one normally expects.\u00a0 Instead the focus is soft and the shadows are not full and rich.\u00a0 It almost seems like it might have been created by another person.\u00a0 And for that reason I find it all the more interesting.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to imagine the great Ansel Adams as an amateur, a novice photographer.\u00a0 One normally associates him with a supremely confident master of his art, a pioneer of techniques, both technical and aesthetic, that we still use and revere today.\u00a0 And this is certainly an accurate characterization.\u00a0 But like all of us, he had to start somewhere.\u00a0 We all go through a period where our art is in its formative stages, where we are discovering ourselves, our vision and our voice.\u00a0 And this photograph was part of the process for Adams.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It just so happened that the at that time (early 1920s) photography was not recognized as an art form.\u00a0 Painting was art but photography\u2019s role was mere documentation.\u00a0 Photography was firmly in its Pictorialism period championed by the great Alfred Stieglitz.\u00a0 The generally accepted norm of the time was that for photography to rise to the level of fine art it had to emulate the supreme visual fine art \u2013 painting.\u00a0 So photographs were intentionally made to look like paintings, not photographs.\u00a0 A soft quality, a lack of sharp focus and contrast, was especially prized by the Pictorialists.\u00a0 The photography magazines of the day discussed Pictorial techniques, one of which was to use soft focus lenses.<\/p>\n

\"170px-Stieglitz-SpringShowers\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Spring Showers (1902)
\nAlfred Stieglitz<\/p>\n

Adams was an ardent reader of these magazines and eager to try out the techniques they described.\u00a0 So he purchased a soft lens and began exploring its capabilities.\u00a0 Most of his photographs of that period didn\u2019t hold any attraction for him.\u00a0 Except this one.\u00a0 He was fascinated by how the soft lens introduced lens flare and aberrations that imparted a luminance to the photograph, especially in the highlights.<\/p>\n

But Pictorialism was not Adams\u2019 bag.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t take long for him to move on.\u00a0 He was of the conviction that photography could stand on its own as fine art, that it didn\u2019t have to imitate painting.\u00a0 He also came to quickly appreciate the beauty in sharply focused images with dramatic contrast.\u00a0 He was one of the founders of the radical group of Western photographers, Group f\/64, that rebelled against Stieglitz and the Pictorialist establishment of the East.\u00a0 (By the way, when Adams later showed his Group f\/64 work to Stieglitz, he (Stieglitz) recognized it for the great art that it was and immediately committed to a show in New York.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very interesting to go back in time and realize the struggles photography went through to be able to stand on its own as fine art.\u00a0 It was pioneers like Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham and others so effectively and persuasively made the case.<\/p>\n

And the ironic thing is, now that photography is accepted as fine art, many are returning to some of the values of the Pictorialists.\u00a0 But this time around it\u2019s called, Impressionism.\u00a0 And I think that\u2019s a good thing.\u00a0 In my own work I\u2019ve employed techniques and materials to make my photographs look like paintings.\u00a0 No, they\u2019re not soft but at art festivals and shows people often question that they are photographs.<\/p>\n

\"sierra_impressions_2009\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With Lensbaby the soft lens has returned.\u00a0 It offers more creative flexibility then the soft lens Adams employed.\u00a0 And many of todays\u2019 finest photographers like Tony Sweet are creating incredible images with it.<\/p>\n

\"tony_sweet_16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tony Sweet<\/p>\n

William Neill has pioneered a different type of Impressionist photography, the blur.\u00a0 His portfolio, \u201cImpressions of Light,\u201d is supremely beautiful in it\u2019s delicate softness.<\/p>\n

\"neill_impressions-of-light-hover\"<\/a><\/p>\n

William Neill<\/p>\n

So we are artists after all.\u00a0 And while there are many commonalities we share with painting we proudly stand on our own.\u00a0 But it took pioneers like Adams and the other Group f\/64 members to set photography on the course that has taken it to the place where it is today.<\/p>\n

\n

If you enjoyed this post please feel free to share it with your friends or on Facebook.\u00a0 And we\u2019re always interested in hearing from you so don\u2019t hesitate to leave a comment.<\/p>\n

We do photography workshops.\u00a0 Come on out and join us.\u00a0 Click here to check us out.<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also check out our photography.\u00a0 Click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

WordPress Tags: Ansel<\/a>,Adams<\/a>,Photographs<\/a>,Lodgepole<\/a>,Pines<\/a>,drama<\/a>,Instead<\/a>,person<\/a>,novice<\/a>,photographer<\/a>,techniques<\/a>,characterization<\/a>,vision<\/a>,photography<\/a>,role<\/a>,documentation<\/a>,Pictorialism<\/a>,Stieglitz<\/a>,norm<\/a>,paintings<\/a>,Pictorialists<\/a>,magazines<\/a>,Pictorial<\/a>,Showers<\/a>,reader<\/a>,capabilities<\/a>,Most<\/a>,attraction<\/a>,Except<\/a>,aberrations<\/a>,conviction<\/a>,Western<\/a>,photographers<\/a>,Group<\/a>,Pictorialist<\/a>,establishment<\/a>,East<\/a>,York<\/a>,Edward<\/a>,Weston<\/a>,Imogen<\/a>,Cunningham<\/a>,Impressionism<\/a>,festivals<\/a>,Lensbaby<\/a>,Tony<\/a>,Sweet<\/a>,William<\/a>,Neill<\/a>,Impressionist<\/a>,portfolio<\/a>,Impressions<\/a>,artists<\/a>,commonalities<\/a>,lens<\/a>,didn<\/a><\/p>\n

(3088)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another post in a continuing series based on Ansel Adams’ wonderful book, “Examples – The Making of 40 Photographs.” This post covers a photograph from his Pictorialist period – Lodgepole Pines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,471],"tags":[610,589,588,587,608,607,596,631,611,621,632,598,592,616,618,615,609,417,613,620,622,628,630,593,253,623,590,603,582,627,600,595,601,594,29,457,383,13,604,541,614,602,591,629,606,597,605,599,625,269,624,507,612,619,626,617],"class_list":["post-2613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-making-a-photograph","tag-aberrations","tag-adams","tag-ansel","tag-artists","tag-attraction","tag-capabilities","tag-characterization","tag-commonalities","tag-conviction","tag-cunningham","tag-didn","tag-documentation","tag-drama","tag-east","tag-edward","tag-establishment","tag-except","tag-festivals","tag-group","tag-imogen","tag-impressionism","tag-impressionist","tag-impressions","tag-instead","tag-lens","tag-lensbaby","tag-lodgepole","tag-magazines","tag-most","tag-neill","tag-norm","tag-novice","tag-paintings","tag-person","tag-photographer","tag-photographers","tag-photographs","tag-photography","tag-pictorial","tag-pictorialism","tag-pictorialist","tag-pictorialists","tag-pines","tag-portfolio","tag-reader","tag-role","tag-showers","tag-stieglitz","tag-sweet","tag-techniques","tag-tony","tag-vision","tag-western","tag-weston","tag-william","tag-york"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-G9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2613"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2616,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613\/revisions\/2616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}