Featuring archival footage of Ansel Adams, as well as interviews with Berkeley-based photographer Richard Misrach and FAMSF curator Lauren Palmor, this film examines the impact of Ansel Adams’s prolific photography in the Bay Area and beyond. “Ansel Adams in Our Time” is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in partnership with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
It is on view at the de Young museum from April 8 until July 23, 2023.
Filmed, Edited and Directed by: Janssen Powers
Narration by: Ansel Adams
Sound Design/ Mix by: Steve Horne
Score by: Janssen Powers & Harrison Allen
My wife and I disappeared into the Rocky Mountains for a week last summer on a mission to complete the Teton Crest Trail. We decided to bring my 16mm camera along to document the 40-mile trek, figuring that the footage would last a lot longer than any bruises made by our heavy packs.
In hindsight, now going on six-weeks cooped up inside a NYC apartment, deciding to shoot this trip feels like one of the best decisions we’ve made. Like many of us in these uncertain times, I’ve been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster lately, but this footage has given me an escape.
Here’s to hoping that someone else can find some solace in it as well. Happy Earth Day.
From a Christie’s online article:
Adams’ ‘visualisation’ strategy marked a shift away from Pictorialism, a much more manipulated photographic style, which had influenced his early work. His desire for sharper focus and deeper tone and contrast (he called it ‘an austere and blazing poetry of the real’) led to him becoming a leading figure in pure — or straight — photography.
Arguably no other photographer of his era knew more about photography than Adams. He wrote ten technical manuals on the discipline, and even advised major figures like Strand and Edward Weston, his friend and fellow West Coast photographer.
He also consulted for Polaroid and Hasselblad. Without such technical mastery he would not have been able to react with such immediacy to the quickly changing conditions of landscape.
One of his most famous works, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941, needed snap judgements of immense sophistication to capture the momentary effect of sunset light on the foreground, and establish a balanced tone and focus with the distant peaks, evanescent clouds and darkening sky.
From a AnselAdams.com online release:
Making the Special Edition Photographs is an assignment I continue to this day, with Ansel’s vision and standards always in mind as I work. The prints are still made directly from Ansel’s negatives and in the “traditional” way: in a wet darkroom with amber safelights, chemicals and running water. The prints are still silver-gelatin prints, meaning that the image-forming element is literally metallic silver. Precious.
And after nearly 40 years, I can honestly say that I never tire of seeing these images come up in the developing tray. It’s an honor and privilege to play a small part in continuing Ansel’s legacy.
This collection, entitled the Yosemite Special Edition Photographs, proved immensely popular and over the years, Ansel added more images to the set until the total was capped at 30 at the time of his passing in 1984.
Today, Best’s Studio is known as the Ansel Adams Gallery, and continues as a family-run business. Ansel’s Special Edition Photographs of Yosemite are a mainstay of the Gallery’s offerings and heritage. Each print is still made by hand directly from Ansel’s original negatives, using his approach and methodology to ensure strict adherence to his standards and aesthetic.
To read more: http://anseladams.com/ansel-adams-yosemite-special-edition-photographs/
Boomers Daily 