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Glen Canyon Lament By Philip Hyde 1

October 29th, 2010

Landscape Photography Blogger’s 100th Blog Post

For more about why dams are bad for rivers and how dams are being removed in a grassroots nationwide movement to restore the main arteries of life on Earth see the blog post, “A River Will Run Through It.” For more on how reservoirs infringe on wilderness read the blog post, “The Making of ‘Rainbow Bridge from the Upstream Side.’”

A Lament for Glen Canyon by Philip Hyde 1

Originally published in The Living Wilderness Magazine September 1980

Cathedral In The Desert, Glen Canyon, Utah, 1964 by Philip Hyde after the Glen Canyon Dam gates were closed. Named by American Photo Magazine one of the top 100 photographs of the 20th Century. Philip Hyde photographed Glen Canyon on river trips with David Brower and other Sierra Club leaders in 1958, 1962 and 1964.

(See the photograph full screen Click Here.)

Burn another candle to the memory of Glen Canyon—this time for a remnant of the great Utah-Arizona canyon system that most lovers of that rugged country thought safe from the clutches of the sprawling reservoir behind Glen Canyon Dam. This time for the mouth of Coyote Gulch, that fine water-sculptured meeting of Coyote with the beautiful Escalante Canyon. And for an Escalante stretch above their junction.

Why in memoriam? Because after 17 years of waiting for the filling of the reservoir euphemistically named “Lake” Powell, this spring it finally happened. And as it did, a lot of people discovered one more error in the calculations made in the planning of Glen Canyon Dam. The maps for the reservoir area originally showed that the maximum pool (highest water level) would reach only to a point well below the Coyote mouth. This June, however, a surge of spring runoff from an unusually heavy snowpack on the Colorado River’s headwaters in the Rockies brought the reservoir level to its operational maximum (3,700 feet above sea level) for the first time since the gates of the dam’s diversion tunnels were closed in 1963. The surge flooded a sixth of a mile or so of Coyote Gulch to a depth of as much as 11 feet and backed up about a quarter of a mile beyond Coyote in the Escalante River Canyon. Thus it proved, the maps were wrong.

Hikers who had thought this the province of land-based, self-powered exploration and enjoyment suddenly found themselves cut off from access, unless they had a boat. Cut off from Escalante Canyon upstream, from the wonderful climb over ledges to the base of Stevens Arch, from Stevens Canyon.

No great loss, says the renamed Bureau of Reclamation (now the Water and Power Resources Service—WAPRS, pronounced woppers), which built and operates the dam. The hikers can swim, or float across on their air mattresses, or scramble up the ledges on a newly cairned detour trail that will even save the hurried some time over the old creek-bed route. Maybe just as well, agrees the National Park Service, which manages visitation in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Coyote was getting too much use anyway, and the water might help divert users to other Escalante entrances—although not the motorboaters, who already are acknowledging their own improved access to the Escalante and Coyote with deposits of beer cans and other “garbage.” “The wilderness ethic of boaters is different,” says an Escalante ranger.

Coyote is indeed wilderness, as is the rest of the superlatively wild Escalante canyon system, although not yet legally so. The lower dozen of Coyote’s 18 miles (as the crow flies) are part of a 588,855-acre Glen Canyon Wilderness proposal (another 49,000 acres could be added later) already recommended by the Secretary of the Interior and awaiting clearance for presidential submission to Congress. The balance of the gulch is on Bureau of Land Management lands, but BLM favors adding it to the recreation area and wilderness unit. But Lake Powell’s clutching fingers are complicating the wilderness prospect, too. Because Congress gave dam needs priority over all else in Glen Canyon, planners decided to make the wilderness boundary the reservoir water line. Thus when Lake Powell expands, the bordering wilderness would diminish. Sometimes Coyote’s mouth would be in, sometimes out. Therefore, what would be its status? “It’s a slippery one,” admits one official.

Park Rangers already are trying to manage the Coyote Gulch and the Escalante River as de facto wilderness, and they are understandably worried not only about the littering by the boaters but by campfire rings and other problems of growing public use. This fall they expect to introduce a permit system in order to control use and combat abuses. This is to the good. But there doesn’t seem to be much official concern about the direct impacts of the flooding—the lasting water damage to canyon walls desert-varnished by eons, or the mess left by silt and debris that collect at the reservoir slack water, or worse, the permanent dirty “bathtub ring” that any fluctuating reservoir inevitably leaves behind, and that Lake Powell will too.

Obviously, the former Bureau of Reclamation had a point to make: that it could fill a reservoir whose benefits and cost justification were based on miscalculation of the amount of water available in the Colorado River. One could use the services of an investigative-reporter team, or perhaps an indefatigable Ph.D. candidate armed with the Freedom of Information Act, to find out just how close Glen Canyon Dam has come to paying off anything during these 17 years of painfully slow filling of the reservoir…

Continued in the next blog post, “Glen Canyon Lament By Philip Hyde 2”

To read more about Philip Hyde and the defense of wild places, see the tribute blog post, “Celebrating Wilderness By William Neill.” For more on Glen Canyon and the photographs of it by Philip Hyde see the blog posts, “Glen Canyon Portfolio 1,” “Glen Canyon Portfolio 2” and “Glen Canyon Portfolio 3.”

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Lake Tenaya and Yosemite National Park

October 27th, 2010

Lake Tenaya, John Muir and Yosemite National Park Introduce Philip Hyde To Wilderness

All the merry dwellers of the trees and streams, and the myriad swarms of the air, called into life by the sunbeam of a summer morning, go home through death, wings folded perhaps in the last red rays of sunset of the day when they were first tried. Trees towering in the sky, braving storms, for centuries, flowers turning faces to the light for a single day or an hour, having enjoyed their share of life’s feast–all alike pass on and away under the law of death and love. Yet all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, share heaven’s blessings with us, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity and return into eternity.  — John Muir

Early Morning, Lake Tenaya, Yosemite National Park, Sierra Nevada, California, 1975 by Philip Hyde.

(See the photograph full screen Click Here.)

Philip Hyde had a long association with Yosemite National Park, many years before meeting Ansel Adams and Virginia Best Adams of Best’s Studio in Yosemite Valley and a long association with Yosemite after meeting Ansel Adams. Philip Hyde first visited Yosemite National Park with the Boy Scouts on a 1938 Sierra Nevada high country backpack. He returned the following year with the Boy Scouts for another backpack, and nearly every year thereafter, most often with his father Leland Hyde and his brother David Lee Hyde. All the while he carried a soiled and worn copy of John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir. To read more on how John Muir’s writings inspired Philip Hyde see the blog post, “New Portfolio: Yosemite And Sierra Black and White Prints.”

Philip Hyde’s Early Black And White Landscape Photographs

Philip Hyde made a photograph in 1942 of “Shadow Creek, Minarets Wilderness, Sierra Nevada” on a backpack trip with his father and brother into the Minarets Wilderness, now the Ansel Adams Wilderness. This photograph and others made before World War II in the Sierra Nevada back country, Philip Hyde considered his first fine art quality wilderness photographs, though he did make superb photographs of some trackless wild areas of Sugar Bowl Ski Area in the winter of 1940. A few of these early 1940s photographs are on exhibition for the first time since before World War II, as part of Philip Hyde’s Mountain Landscapes at the Camera Obscura Gallery (post-War digital images from the show are on the Camera Obscura website), currently showing through November 13, 2010. For more details see also the blog post, “Vintage And Digital Prints Together In One Exhibition.”

As described in the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 6,” Philip Hyde first met Ansel Adams in the 1946 Summer Session of the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute, after serving in the Army Air Corp. For Summer Break 1949, between photography school courses, Ansel Adams helped Ardis and Philip Hyde land the caretakers job at the Sierra Club Parson’s Lodge and McCauley Cabin in Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park. Read more about the Hydes in Tuolumne Meadows on Philip Hyde’s Sierra Club History pages. Philip Hyde created some of his best black and white landscape photography during the Summer of 1949 and the next summer on a Sierra Club High Trip led by David Brower that started in the back country of Yosemite National Park, headed north through the Minarets Wilderness and circled back to Tuolumne Meadows. For many years Philip Hyde kept up his association and correspondence with Virginia and Ansel Adams, from time to time visiting them at their home in Carmel.

Philip Hyde Teaches At The Ansel Adams Workshops In Yosemite Valley

In 1968, Ansel Adams invited Philip Hyde to sit in on a workshop at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite Valley. Within the next few years, Philip Hyde began to teach the Ansel Adams June Workshop with Ansel Adams and eventually co-led the Color Workshop for years with William Garnett, Wally MacGalliard, Steve Crouch, David Cavagnaro and others. Philip Hyde also taught the Ansel Adams Landscape Workshop with John Sexton, Stu Levy, Joan Myers and others. The Sierra Photographic Center based in El Portal, California just outside the park, also hosted workshops in Yosemite National Park that Philip Hyde taught, as did the Yosemite Institute and the University of California Extension with such teachers as Philip Hyde, Wynn Bullock, Al Weber, Huntington Witherill, Pirkle Jones, Dave Bohn, Steve Crouch, Art Bacon, Bob Kolbrenner and others. For an introduction and list of the workshops Philip Hyde taught in other places besides Yosemite National Park, see the blog post, “Photography Workshops Taught By Philip Hyde.” In the mid 1970s Best’s Studio was renamed the Ansel Adams Gallery and Ansel’s son, Michael and his wife Jeanne Adams took over the business from his mother Virginia Best Adams. Virginia’s father, Harry Best, originally opened his “studio” to sell his paintings in a tent in 1902. The Ansel Adams Gallery Workshops continued and Philip Hyde with them into the 1980s when he made a number of his best color landscape photographs in Yosemite National Park, before or after teaching workshops, while still lugging around his 4X5 Baby Deardorff View Camera in his 60s.

Ardis And Philip Hyde’s Last Yosemite Sierra Nevada High Country Trip

Ardis and Philip Hyde made their last Sierra Nevada pack trip into the Yosemite High Country July 24 – August 3, 1991, six days before her 66th birthday and 12 days before his 70th birthday. They hiked 6.7 miles the first day from the Dog Lake Trailhead on the Vogelsang Trail to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp. Vogelsang offered “luxurious” tent deck cabins and a common building. Ardis Hyde wrote in her travel log, “Pack trains and numerous hikers going in both directions. The path is a groove but the going is easy and the altitude not noticeable at our slow pace.” They stayed at Vogelsang High Sierra Camp four nights and made side trips while Philip Hyde photographed. The flowers Ardis Hyde identified around Vogelsang were mountain pretty face, alpine hulsea, mountain jewel flower, soft arnica, Gordon’s ivesia, mountain wallflower and ball head sandwort. They also saw an adult Golden Eagle and an immature Golden Eagle. More details of this pack trip in future blog posts. The hike to Merced Lake Camp was 7.6 miles, where they also stayed four nights and then hit the trail at 6:30 am for the long “mostly up” 10 mile hike to Sunrise Camp where they camped for two nights before hiking out to Tuolumne Meadows to end their pack trip and a life-long exploration of the Sierra Nevada High Country and a love of mountain wilderness, particularly in Yosemite National Park.

Falling In Love With The Wilderness Of The Sierra Nevada

This life-long love affair with mountains and Yosemite National Park began for Philip Hyde in 1938 at age 16. The next year at age 17, for the second time he rode in the back of an open truck from San Francisco across California’s Great Central Valley with his Boy Scout friends, “through the foothills of the Sierra into the deep canyon of the Merced River,” as he described it in “Notes On A Life Of Photography” in “The Range of Light”:

This time we headed for Lake Tenaya over the old Tioga Road–that magnificent, unexcelled display road–narrow, twisty, bumpy, steep. We couldn’t go fast; the road’s low standard prevented it–so naturally we saw more of the country, some of the finest in the Sierra Nevada. At Tenaya we had the lake and the wonderful granite sand beach at the east end to ourselves. A camper could borrow one of the camp’s canoes, which I did one night, paddling alone out on the silent, dark lake. I remember sitting for long minutes, my head cocked back so I could see, entranced by the millions of pin-points of light–a city kid whose only views of the night sky had been through fog or haze and light-flared dense city air. That was my first brush with the immensity, silence and solitude of wilderness.

The next blog post will be number 100 for Landscape Photography Blogger. We will honor the occasion with the first part of “A Lament For Glen Canyon” by Philip Hyde, originally published in The Living Wilderness.

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Photography’s Golden Era 8

October 25th, 2010

The California School Of Fine Arts Makes Art History

Continued from the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 7.”

Snags And Tree Reflections In Lake In Ritter Range, now Ansel Adams Wilderness, Sierra Nevada, 1950 by Philip Hyde. This photograph almost made the "Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts 1945-1955" book. It was the next runner up.

(See the photograph full screen, Click Here.)

The California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute, since 1930 has occupied the same campus buildings at 800 Chestnut Street between Jones and Leavenworth on San Francisco’s vibrant Russian Hill. The Russian Hill neighborhood “offers some of the best views of the city, a park at its summit and Lombard, the ‘crookedest’ street in the world,” explains the San Francisco Art Institute’s website:

Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is one of the U.S.’s oldest and most prestigious schools of higher education in contemporary art.… At SFAI we focus on educating artists who will become the creative leaders of their generation.… SFAI has been central to the development of many of this country’s most notable art movements. During its first sixty years, influential artists associated with the school included Eadweard Muybridge, photographer and pioneer of motion graphics; Maynard Dixon, painter of San Francisco’s labor movement and of the landscape of the West; Henry Kiyama, whose Four Immigrants Manga was the first graphic novel published in the US; Louise Dahl-Wolf, an innovative photographer whose work for Harper’s Bazaar defined a new American style of “environmental” fashion photography in the 1930s; John Gutzon Borglum, the creator of the large-scale public sculpture known as Mt. Rushmore; and numerous others.

In 1930 Mexican muralist Diego Rivera arrived in San Francisco…to paint a fresco at the school’s new campus on Chestnut Street. Many of the school’s faculty had visited Rivera in Mexico, and the school had a distinguished program in fresco painting.… After 1945, the school became a nucleus for Abstract Expressionism. New York artists Clyfford Still, Ad Reinhardt, and Mark Rothko taught here, along with David Park, Elmer Bischoff, Nathan Oliveira, and others… The first film course at CSFA was taught by Sydney Peterson in 1947. Jordan Belson, who had enrolled as a painting student in 1944, showed his first abstract film, Transmutations, in 1947 at the second “Art in Cinema” program, co-sponsored by CSFA and the San Francisco Museum of Art. In 1949, an international conference, The Western Roundtable on Modern Art, was organized by CSFA Director Douglas McAgy, and included Marcel Duchamp, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Gregory Bateson, among others. The object of the roundtable was to expose “hidden assumptions” and to frame new questions about art.

Renamed the San Francisco Art Institute in 1961, SFAI refuted the distinction between fine and applied arts, and expanded the definition of art to include performance, conceptual art, graphic arts, typography, and political and social documentary. The year 1968 was, as elsewhere in the world, a pivotal year in the history of the San Francisco Art Institute. Among the students at SFAI that year were Annie Liebovitz, who had just begun photographing for Rolling Stone magazine; Paul McCarthy, well-known for his gross but hilarious performance videos; and Charles Bigelow, who would be among the first typographers to design fonts for computers. Alumni Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones (also faculty) were documenting the early days of the Black Panther Party in Northern California, and the photographs were exhibited at the de Young Museum.

CSFA Students In Other Art Departments Reject Photography As An Art

Pirkle Jones was a classmate of Philip Hyde and Benjamen Chinn in the second class of Ansel Adam’s photography department that started in Fall 1947. All three photographers went on to full-time photography careers throughout their lives. Benjamen Chinn continued to work for the Navy as a civilian in charge of the photo lab in San Francisco and on his own made fine art photographs of China Town for many years. Pirkle Jones developed an illustrious publishing career including projects with documentary photography pioneer Dorothea Lange. Philip Hyde’s photographs were central to the development of the modern environmental movement and helped introduce color to landscape photography. These photographers and the others who attended Ansel Adam’s photography program in its early years began their careers when photography was still becoming recognized as an art form and when little market for stock photography existed. Many California School of Fine Arts students became instrumental in the development of the medium. For more information on the work of the many talented CSFA photography students see the blog post, “The Golden Decade: California School of Fine Arts Photography,” or the blog post, “Over 500 People Attend Golden Decade Opening.”

In 1945 when word passed around the California School of Fine Arts that Ansel Adams was starting a photography department, the other departments flew into an uproar. Ansel Adams described it in his Autobiography:

The painters, sculptors, printmakers, and ceramicists arose in wrath and protest; photography is not an art, they claimed, and had no place in an art school. Besides, the other artists insisted they had insufficient space as it was. Ted Spencer (Previous CSFA President, Head of the Board, and President of the San Francisco Art Association) was really provoked but he stood fast. He knew photography is an art form and he was determined that it become part of the school curriculum. I was very unpopular around the school until it became obvious that my basic teaching in that medium, in both craft and aesthetic direction, was agreeable and progressive.

However, even then objection sometimes bubbled just beneath the surface, particularly in the painting department, where both students and faculty continued to conspire against the new department. These objections and malicious undermining finally softened as talented photography students began to take courses in other departments and excel. The students became acquainted and the ice began to melt. Besides, the photography students were bringing the school new recognition in exhibitions around San Francisco at some of the best museums and galleries.

Ansel Adams Plans “The Best Photo School In The U.S.”

Ted Spencer, besides being president of the San Francisco Arts Association, was a renowned architect. He helped Ansel Adams brainstorm and lay out the photography department. Ansel Adams had many other allies including the influential art barron, Albert Bender. Albert Bender helped some of the students and graduates with what became a prestigious Grant In Aid. Philip Hyde was one of the first two recipients of the Bender Grant. More on the Bender Grant in future blog posts. In Jeff Gunderson’s essay on the beginnings of the phtography program in The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts, he said that Ansel Adams “did not want to repeat the mistakes he had witnessed while teaching at the Art Center in Los Angeles” in developing the California School of Fine Arts photography department and curriculum. Jeff Gunderson wrote about and quoted Ansel Adams describing his plans:

He stressed “personal contact with the instructor,” which he thought “more effective and stimulating than continuous, routine, group instruction.” Consequently he strongly recommended that the department “be based…on a music conservatory plan…with lectures, demonstrations and exhibits,…required reading, and personal instruction and assignments.” These lectures would serve to “orient the entire school” not just the photography students, “toward understanding…good photography as an important element of contemporary life.” Adams stressed that the history of photography needed to be incorporated into the “general course of art history offered to all students” and that the photography faculty would be prepared to contribute the necessary lectures and illustrations.” To increase income and publicize the department, he proposed “evening classes for amateurs” that could be offered “as an interesting inducement to the general public.” Adams recognized that the venture would consume much of his time, and he was driven to complete other extracurricular projects, including a “series of 6 books on technique for Morgan & Lester” that would eventually include Camera and Lens, The Negative and The Print.

In 1945 as the first of the G.I. Bill students began to pour in recently liberated from World War II, CSFA finances boosted enough that the CSFA Board gave Ansel Adams the go-ahead to teach one eight week course and two four week sessions. By January 1946, a full-time session “for advanced amateurs and professionals” began with a maximum capacity enrollment of 36 students that continued in the Fall as the first full-time class in the department.

Philip Hyde, who was scheduled to begin the full-time class in the Fall of 1947, attended the Summer Session in 1946. Students anticipated this Summer Session because Ansel Adams had written that it would be a special class that would allow the school to “clear up various ‘bugs’ in the studio, lab and general operation.” It would also serve as a “screening course” for the next entering class and should be “very intensive and…reveal with its 6 weeks’ span the abilities—or lack of them in the students.”

Benjamen Chinn Talks Skills And Photographic Prints

Benjamen Chinn later remarked that Philip Hyde had been much more experienced as a photographer than he was when they started together in the Fall of 1947. This is surprising and possibly part of Benjamen Chinn’s modest nature to describe Philip Hyde that way because Benjamen Chinn had taken photography when he attended Galileo High School, which today is known as Galileo Academy of Science and Technology. Benjamen Chinn knew Bill Quandt from his high school photography classes. Later, beginning in 1947, Bill Quandt assisted Minor White as instructor of photography at the California School of Fine Arts. Benjamen Chinn had also taken photography at San Francisco City College and had been a photographer for the Navy during World War II. Philip Hyde took photography at Polytechnic High School and at San Francisco City College before the War but never met Benjamen Chinn until Fall 1947 in class at the California School of Fine Arts.

The Summer 1946 course, besides Ansel Adams, had two established Bay Area photographers on faculty, both Group f64 members, Imogen Cunningham and Alma Lavenson. Minor White first joined the class as a student on July 5. Ansel Adams had hired Minor White to take his place as lead instructor. “The whole muddled business of exposure and development fell into place,” Minor White wrote of his experience in the first class he sat in on. “Sitting up in class my problems…cleared up pronto!… The theory was crystalline clear…and I was out in the afternoon helping kids trying to do it. I think they probably knew more about it than I did; but some of them knew less, so I talked to those.” To read more about Minor White’s teaching and how he and Philip Hyde inspired each other see the blog post, “Minor White Letters 1.”

“Ansel was interested in good fine prints like his own,” Benjamen Chinn said. “He was a fine pianist. I always maintained that his piano playing was even better than his photography.” Benjamen Chinn’s print collection included those by Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston but not Ansel Adams. “I wasn’t collecting then,” Ben said. “I didn’t realize his prints would go up in price that much. Of course now all photographs are going up.” Benjamen Chinn pointed out in 2005 that many collectors are now collecting prints from the first ten years of Ansel Adams’ photography program. Richard Gadd, Director of the Weston Gallery in Carmel, said in 2009 that the late 1940s and early 1950s have been overlooked by collectors and are now getting more attention. A well-known Bay Area photography collector specializes in collecting photographs by California School of Fine Arts students. Benjamen Chinn said that this collector published a catalog of the work of most of the early California School Of Fine Arts students.

“They priced each small print at $3,000 or $2,500 and up,” Benjamen Chinn said. They usually collect from estate sales. They got three or four of my prints from a classmate’s collection. When she was moved to a home they cleaned out her place and found some of the exchange prints. A lot of people had Bill Quandt’s prints and they got his originals too. I’m sure they didn’t pay much for them. After they found out who I was they asked me to go up to where they lived in the Mission Street area in San Francisco and sign their prints with them. They showed me some prints of mine, and many others. They probably got the whole estate for $500. The people didn’t know what they had. They just wanted to get rid of the stuff quickly.”

In future blog posts in this series look forward to reading about student gatherings and print exchanges in various homes, at Ansel Adam’s house and at Vesuvio’s in vibrant North Beach, about the unusual questions on the California School of Fine Arts photography school application, more about Ansel Adam’s Zone System, how students would wonder what Benjamen Chinn was doing for his assignment as he worked at home, classes with Minor White, a field trip with Edward Weston, how the Bay Area art culture began to blossom and much more. For more about Edward Weston not in this series see the blog post, “Edward Weston’s Landscape Philosophy Part 1.”

Continued in the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 9.”

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Golden Decade Exhibition Extended

October 18th, 2010

The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts, 1945-1955

Smith Andersen North Gallery Mobbed All Over Again

Exhibition Extended to November 13, 2010,

With New Closing Reception and Book Signing

Rock Formations Detail, Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve, California, 1949 by Philip Hyde. This photograph made by Philip Hyde on a California School of Fine Arts class field trip to see Edward Weston at Wildcat Hill in Carmel and photograph with him on Point Lobos may have been created while Edward Weston was present. A vintage print of this photograph is on consignment at Smith Andersen North Gallery and part of the Golden Decade Exhibition and book. Philip Hyde considered Edward Weston his primary model for a simple life close to nature and dedicated to fine art photography.

A prominent feature article in the Marin Independent Journal and Contra Costa Times called, “Golden Images: Exhibit Shows Work That Helped Transform Photography Into An Art Form” recently featured Stan Zrnich, a former CSFA student and long-time resident of San Rafael, Marin County, California. Stan Zrnich spoke about the show, his photography and his years as a student at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The article brought to the event another wave of local guests that grew into another inundation of the Smith Andersen North Gallery as the article was syndicated to other newspapers around the Bay Area.

Due to the success of the Golden Decade Exhibition, it will be extended to November 13. Also, the Smith Andersen North Gallery will host a Closing Reception and Book Signing.

Closing Reception and Book Signing

Saturday, November 13, 2-6 pm

Smith Andersen North Gallery
20 Greenfield Avenue
San Anselmo, California   94960
415-455-9665

A handful of the Golden Decade photographers will be present to meet, greet and sign books. If you weren’t able to attend the opening or didn’t get a chance to meet the photographers and get a good look at the work through the crowds, this will be the perfect opportunity to experience the show anew.

The exhibition was organized in conjunction with the pre-publication release of the book  The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts, written by Ira Latour, Bill Heick and C. Cameron  Macauley and compiled by Ken Ball and Victoria Whyte Ball. For book inquiries or to reserve a copy (there are about 40 limited edition pre-published books available), please contact Ken & Victoria Ball at 925-373-0173 and let them know you heard about it on Lanscape Photography Blogger.

For more information about the Golden Decade Exhibition and the original show announcement see the blog post, “The Golden Decade: California School Of Fine Arts Photography.” For a follow-up review of the Golden Decade Opening read the blog post, “Over 500 People Attend Golden Decade Opening.”

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Vintage And Digital Prints Together In One Exhibition

September 25th, 2010

WHAT:            Two Exhibitions of photographs

WHO:            Gallery I:  Philip Hyde’s Mountain Landscapes

Gallery II: Affirmations of Spirit: Photographs by Carolyn Guild

WHERE:            The Camera Obscura Gallery

Across From The Denver Art Museum

1309 Bannock Street, Denver, CO   80204

303-623-4059

WHEN:            October 1—November 13, 2010 Opening reception for Carolyn Guild and David Leland Hyde:  Friday, Oct.1 , 5:00 to 9:00 PM—Gallery talk with David Hyde 7:00 PM

"The Divine Jewelry of Winter" -John Muir, Ice Plates On Indian Creek II, Northern Sierra Nevada, California, 1976 by Philip Hyde. This will be one of several original Cibachrome prints made by Philip Hyde in the Camera Obscura Exhibition.

STAY TUNED: The Entire Exhibition Will Be Displayed On the Camera Obscura Website Starting The Week Before The Show.

Photographs by Philip Hyde and Carolyn Guild

The Camera Obscura Gallery presents two exhibitions of photographs.  Gallery I will showcase the exquisite color and black & white landscape work of the late photographer and environmentalist, Philip Hyde, titled Philip Hyde’s Mountain Landscapes, and will include both modern prints and rare early vintage prints.  Gallery II will feature Carolyn Guild’s contemplative black & white landscape and nature imagery, Affirmations of Spirit. This exhibition offers a continuous time line of landscape photography from the past into the present as Carolyn Guild first began exhibiting her work around the time Philip Hyde passed on in 2006.

Philip Hyde’s Mountain Landscapes

Philip Hyde, American Landscape Photographer and Environmentalist, b. 1921 d. 2006

In 1951 the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society sent Philip Hyde on the world’s first conservation photography assignment. As a result of his trip to Dinosaur National Monument in Northwestern Colorado and Utah, Philip Hyde became photographer for the first book published for a conservation cause: “This Is Dinosaur: Echo Park Country” edited by Wallace Stegner. Born in San Francisco in 1921, landscape photographer Philip Hyde dedicated his life and 60 years of full-time photography to conservation.

Hyde first exhibited his original black and white prints in national venues in 1947 with his Group f.64 mentors from the California School of Fine Arts: Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham. Lead Instructor, Minor White, also curated several exhibitions of his work for major museums in the Eastern U. S. including George Eastman House and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hyde’s color prints have also been widely exhibited and collected by major national museums. His photographs are part of over 50 permanent collections.

The Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series popularized the coffee table photography book and the modern environmental movement began. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” was published in 1962—the same year color came to landscape photography.  The Sierra Club published Eliot Porter’s “In Wildness Is The Preservation of the World” with quotes by Henry David Thoreau and Philip Hyde’s “Island In Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula.” Philip Hyde’s book helped raise funds to acquire the land for Pt. Reyes National Seashore. His innovations in composition and style in the Series influenced a generation of landscape photographers and helped establish or expand such national treasures as the Grand Canyon, Dinosaur National Monument, Canyonlands, the Coast Redwoods, Pt. Reyes, North Cascades, Wind River Range, King’s Canyon, Big Sur and many others.

The Camera Obscura Gallery exhibited Philip Hyde in the 1960s and takes great pleasure in a second showing entitled Philip Hyde’s Mountain Landscapes. David Leland Hyde, Ardis and Philip Hyde’s son, will be present at the opening reception October 1 and will speak at 7 pm about his parent’s western wilderness adventures. The exhibition will continue through November 13. Philip Hyde’s Mountain Landscapes will include original black and white silver prints, dye transfer prints, and Cibachrome prints, as well as Philip Hyde authorized archival digital prints made by Carr Clifton, a protégé and nationally recognized photographer.

Join us for a reception for Carolyn Guild and David Leland Hyde:  Friday, October 1, 5:00 to 9:00PM

Gallery talk with David Hyde:  7 PM

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Over 500 People Attend Golden Decade Opening

September 9th, 2010

Over 500 People Attend Golden Decade Opening, Vintage Philip Hyde Print Is The First To Sell

Title Wall, Golden Decade Exhibition, Smith Andersen North Gallery, San Anselmo, California, 2010 by David Leland Hyde.

Over 500 people turned out for the Marin County opening reception of the Golden Decade Exhibition and Golden Decade pre-publication launch at Smith Andersen North Gallery in San Anselmo, California on Saturday, September 4th from 6 pm to 9 pm. The first prints from the show to sell in the morning before the opening were Philip Hyde’s 4X5 contact print “San Francisco Piers and Waterfront” and Stan Zrnich’s 5X7 contact print “South Pier, Bay Bridge.” Out of over 150 vintage black and white prints from 32 students at the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute, over 30 prints sold the first night.

Front Room, Golden Decade Exhibition, Smith Andersen North Gallery, San Anselmo, California, 2010 by David Leland Hyde.

“There is currently a lot of energy around the work from this period,” said Scott Nichols, a downtown San Francisco photography gallery owner and collector of Scott Nichols Gallery. Scott Nichols has the largest collection of Brett Weston in the world. The 32 photographers featured in the Golden Decade Exhibition were students at the California School of Fine Arts after World War II, in the first decade of Ansel Adams‘ photography department when he hired Minor White as lead instructor, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham and Lisette Model as guest instructors and Edward Weston as field instructor. Former students John Upton, David Johnson and Stan Zrnich all spoke about their experiences at the school and their lives in photography.

Stefan Kirkeby, Smith Andersen North Gallery Owner, Sunday Morning After Golden Decade Opening, Smith Andersen North Gallery, San Anselmo, California, 2010 by David Leland Hyde. Stefan Kirkeby finally gets a chance to see a bit of the book. "I'm knocked out," Stefan said after hosting, curating, matting and framing the show in his in-house frame shop.

“I’ve never seen so many people at a gallery opening,” said Smith Andersen North proprietor Stefan Kirkeby. “There were people packed into the front and spilling out into the street, in the back and outside on the patio. They went through 250 oysters in two hours.” Smith Andersen North Gallery is equipped with large garage doors in front and most of the front of the building can open wide right onto the sidewalk. The Golden Decade Exhibition, scheduled to wrap up at 9 pm, raged on and finally closed down around 11:30 pm. At around 8:25 pm the surrounding neighborhoods looked as though a concert had just let out. Hundreds of people were moving toward their cars and traffic was snarled in surrounding streets. “It was sardine night,” said Stan Zrnich the next morning.

Smith Andersen North presented The Golden Decade Exhibition in conjunction with the release of the book The Golden Decade by former students Cameron Macaluley, William Heick and Ira Latour with Ken and Victoria Whyte Ball daughter of former student Don Whyte. (Website links and more information to come.)

Golden Decade photographers also include Pirkle Jones, Ruth Marion Baruch, Philip Hyde, William Heick, Pat Harris, Bob Hollingsworth, Cameron Macauley, Ira Latour, Benjamen Chinn, Rose Mandel, Gerald Ratto, John Upton and others. Their work has been represented in important photographic historical events such as The Family of Man Exhibition (1955, New York and international venues) and The Perceptions Exhibition (1954, San Francisco), and many of these photographers were prominently featured in the early issues of Aperture magazine when Minor White was editor.

Frame Selection Area, Smith Andersen North Gallery, San Anselmo, California, 2010 by David Leland Hyde. Besides developing a strong following of photography collectors, Smith Anderson North also is a leading framer for major museums in Northern California. Stefan Kirkeby just completed installation of the famous Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He mats on 8-ply Rising Board with archival hinge mats and hand-made paper corners. The frames are hand-made of poplar, ash and other hardwoods. Wooden frames have a much nicer feel than metal frames, don't catch on clothing or packing materials and are perfect for traveling shows because if they get dinged they can be sanded down and repainted. An 11X14 museum frame retails for $200.

The Golden Decade Exhibition runs through October 15, 2010. For more specifics see the blog post, “The Golden Decade: California School of Fine Arts Photography.” For an updated article on the ongoing show see the Fine Art Photography Collector’s Resource Blog post called, “500 People Attend Golden Decade Exhibition.” Also, more description and information about the Golden Decade Opening itself can be found on the Large Format Photography Forum. The Contra Costa Times and other papers announced the Golden Decade Exhibition and Stefan Kirkeby ran a full-page advertisement in Black and White Magazine for the show. To learn more about the Golden Decade of photography in San Francisco and the California School of Fine Arts see the blog posts, “Photography’s Golden Era 7” and “Photography’s Golden Era 6.”

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Photography’s Golden Era 7

September 4th, 2010

Classmates Philip Hyde And Benjamen Chinn Talk About Ansel Adam’s Photography Department At The California School of Fine Arts

(Continued from the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 6.”)

San Francisco Emerges As Post-War Art And Industrial Center Of The West

Locomotive Drive Gear Parts, Tiberon Northwest Pacific Railroad Yards, Marin County, California, 1948 by Philip Hyde. This photograph among others in the Black and White I and Photography School Portfolios will appear in the new book, "The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts, 1945-1955" to be released Tonight, September 4, 2010 at the opening reception at Smith Andersen North Gallery. Also this evening will be a preview screening of the short documentary film, "Looking For My Father Through Ansel Adam's Lens."

(See the photograph full screen Click Here.)

San Francisco flourished coming out of World War II and grew into the financial capitol of the Western United States. In 1945 Bank of America became the largest bank in the world. Bechtel built Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in the early 1960s, and by the 1970s developed into the largest privately held corporation in the world.

Just up the hill from Kaiser, Bank of America, Bechtel, Utah Mining and Construction and others in San Francisco’s financial district, stood the Mill Towers headquarters of what developers called the “enemies of progress,” the Sierra Club. Before the 1950s the Club had only a few thousand members, but in just two decades its numbers soared into the hundreds of thousands.

While industrialists and environmentalists squared off, San Francisco also became the West Coast’s creative center. After World War II, discharged veterans were armed with a new domestic weapon, the G. I. Bill, that promised to pay for their education in the trade school or college of their choice. The Jazz age brought a vibrant night life and music scene to the streets and night clubs of San Francisco. Artists from war-torn Europe and elsewhere settled in the Bay Area. The many military bases funneled young men into industrial development and provided labor for an expanding city.

Writers and artists took over cheap rentals in Marin County from what had been shipyard housing. Abandoned barges in Sausalito were converted into homes with roofs and plumbing. The mingling of painters, sculptors, print makers, photographers, potters, graphic artists, metalworkers and other artists transformed Northern California and the world. It was a great time to be a photographer in San Francisco.

The Legacy And Optimism Of California School Of Fine Arts Photography

At the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute, painters and sculptors, many who later became famous, taught or attended classes. At the time the California School of Fine Arts was among a handful of institutions in the nation that offered an extensive full-time program in photography. Ansel Adams had founded the first academic department in the country to teach photography as a profession at the California School of Fine Arts in 1945. The importance of the school and its influence on all of photography has lasted well into the 21st Century. Ansel Adams and his lead instructor Minor White from Princeton, hired on recommendation from Beaumont Newhall, helped transformed the dialog around photographic practice to a serious study. Students were trained to be not only technically proficient but thoughtful and intentional about how they approached the world with a camera. To learn more about Minor White’s classroom and his letters to Beaumont and Nancy Newhall and his student Philip Hyde about one of his questions, see the blog post, “Minor White Letters 1.”

Their education delayed by the War, many of the photography students were at least three years older than the typical college freshmen. “Most of us were in the service where our lives were on hold,” said San Francisco born student Philip Hyde. “The War taught us a lot that grew us up fast.” Though Philip Hyde’s 15-20 classmates got along well, he said they never talked about the War. “We were enthusiastic about our new lives and wanted to leave the past behind.” They were serious, yet “happy to be free” and enthusiastic to pursue such an outstanding opportunity in San Francisco, the post-war hotbed for the incubation of young artists. The photography students were all highly dedicated. One student, Al Richter, always carried his camera, even at the parties. Al Richter took pictures of each class member and gave them prints.

“The times were amazing because optimism permeated the country,” Philip Hyde said. “Those were some of the happiest days of my life. I was newly married and pursuing something that I thought was important to do. There was a lot of lightheartedness in class. A few of the guys were wags, you know, they often cracked jokes.”

Who Made The Jokes In Class

“That was John Rogers cracking the jokes,” said another classmate Benjamen Chinn. “I know how to Joke but I don’t talk as much as John Rogers. John was the one that always teased Minor White. Al Richter was quiet but had a dry sense of humor.” With the humor, positive outlook and time spent together, many of the class members became life-long friends. Al Richter and Benjamen Chinn called Philip Hyde after he moved to the mountains for the rest of their lives. They drove the five hours from San Francisco to Philip Hyde’s home in the wilderness in 1958, 1959 and 1961.

“Al took his vacation and my vacation didn’t matter, I could take it any time,” Ben Chinn said. “Two or three years in a row he wanted to go up and visit Philip. He did the driving and I just rode along. Al might have had a plan, but I never knew it. He never told me where we were going. It was for the best.” They traveled equipped with 4X5 Baby Deardorffs on wooden tripods. They had a rule that if either one of them saw a picture they would stop and photograph for a while before going on. “Paul Caponigro went with us one of those trips,” Ben said. Paul Caponigro was a photographer friend of Ben’s that he introduced to Ansel Adams, and who subsequently became renowned in his own right.

Ansel Adam’s Approach To Teaching

As founder of the school and teacher of the classes from time to time, Ansel Adams had to find the best way to harness the student’s enthusiasm. He said in his autobiography, “The teacher must guide the student carefully asking if his image says what he wanted it to say and what he tried to visualize as the completed print before the exposure was made. It must be the student’s image, not one imposed upon him.”

“He talked to us in class in such a way, especially when we were out in the field,” Philip Hyde said. Though Ansel did not get into the field with us as much as Minor White or Edward Weston. People have said Ansel’s books are essentially the material he taught in class. Both Ansel and Minor devoted a lot of time talking to us about photography. For Ansel ‘Seeing’ was very important.”

Seeing, Looking, Minor White’s Space Analysis And Other Discoveries

“To me seeing is a process that involves much more than just looking at something.” Philip Hyde said. “It involves analyzing what you are looking at and thinking about what you are going to do, what you are doing it for. When you look at something casually you are not really seeing it. You have to look pretty hard and you have to let your eyes go over it and size it up.”

Benjamen Chinn had been a photographer since age 10. He did aerial reconnaissance photography during the War. Ben started in September 1947 just like Philip Hyde, but left in the middle of 1949 to go to art school in Paris. Benjamen Chinn attended the famous Art School at Sorbonne, University of Paris. He also hitch-hiked all over Europe and in time traveled the world. For many years he worked for the U. S. Department of Defense establishing and overseeing its color photo lab in San Francisco for many years.

Neither Philip Hyde nor Benjamen Chinn seemed to have a firm grasp of Minor White’s famous Space Analysis. Ben said it was one thing he never knew. “On the assignment I did what I thought he wanted. I did a far and near subject. You either had to have the far and near all in focus or focus on the background then focus on the foreground. This identified the space. That is what I thought it was. I am not sure.”

“I don’t have a specific definition of it,” Philip Hyde said. “It is roughly as I say, looking at what is there and deciding what you will include. In doing that you have to look over the space you are pointing at with the camera. The camera and lens are going to select something to capture. We learned to operate the camera to select what we wanted. We learned to take in the whole scene and see what is really there. With some subjects in some photographs my process of seeing was almost instantaneous. The average passer-by doesn’t see everything, not because their eye missed it, but because they didn’t notice it, their brain edited it out.”

This emphasis on careful seeing was a key component of what Ansel Adams, Minor White and Edward Weston taught at the California School of Fine Arts. Philip Hyde explained that some of it was verbalized and some of it he received “largely by osmosis.” He said he learned many of his life-long tools of perception through immersion. “I learned by looking at photographs, talking about them and being totally involved with being a photographer,” Philip Hyde said. “Certain details of a scene capture my attention. With some photographs I experienced a recognition that there was something I ought to photograph. Sometimes seeing can be very quick. After the decision to make a photograph, then you can go back over it and analyze and make sure everything is right about your adjustments: how you framed it and so on. After you see the photograph the process continues with deciding exposure and lens settings. When I’m out looking for photographs it is like I am setting up my own interior camera.”

Pre-Visualization, Photography Exhibitions And Student Assignments

Ansel Adams taught students to make a rectangular black cardboard frame cut out to compose pictures at first. The student could put that special film over the opening and even end up with a black and white image. Philip Hyde said this was only the initial phase in working with the camera. “I wanted to use my eyes rather than an artificial piece of cardboard.”

Philip Hyde said Ansel Adams and Minor White generally had no trouble motivating the students. “All they had to do was say, ‘we are going to do this’ and everybody would be ready to do it. If there was a show at the school or at the San Francisco Museum of Art, Minor would send us on assignment to report on the show.” Sometimes these reports were written and sometimes they were given in verbal form, one student at a time to the rest of the class. “With the verbal reports, we were to describe the show and say something about what impressed us and what we looked for and what we thought the show meant. Sometimes we would describe a picture we particularly liked and explain what about it interested us. There was a lot of that kind of analysis. That was one of the ways we learned.”

For information on a unique exhibition opening tonight of the CSFA photographers from this era go to the blog post, “The Golden Decade: California School of Fine Arts Photography.” For more on the landscape photography of Edward Weston see the blog post, “Edward Weston’s Landscape Philosophy Part 1.”

Continued in the next blog post in the series, “Photography’s Golden Era 8.”

References:

Taped Interviews with Philip Hyde

Taped Interviews with Benjamen Chinn

Community of Creatives Website

Smith Andersen North Gallery Website

The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts by Stephanie Comer, Deborah Klochko and Jeff Gunderson

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How Color Came To Landscape Photography

August 16th, 2010

Photography For Art’s Sake, For Earth’s Sake Or Both?

Drake's Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, California, 1972 by Philip Hyde. This photograph was first published in the revised second edition of Island In Time, 1972.

(See photograph full screen, CLICK HERE.)

Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter and Philip Hyde were the three primary landscape photographers of the Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series. The Series influenced a generation of landscape photographers as it redefined the photography book and brought international attention to the protection of wild places through photographs. While Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter were both Sierra Club Board Members and committed conservationists, Philip Hyde dedicated his life to the portrayal and protection of wilderness chiefly through landscape photography.

Both Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter considered the art of photography their foremost reason for making landscape photographs. Ansel Adams went so far as to say that he did not want people to view his photographs as propaganda for any cause. If his images were used in environmental campaigns that was all for the good, but he did not want that to be thought of as the motive for their creation. In contrast, Philip Hyde expressly stated that his reason for being a landscape photographer was to “share the beauty of nature and encourage people to preserve wild places.”

David Brower Sent Philip Hyde On The Projects That Made National Parks And Designated Wilderness

Though he had fine art training in Ansel Adam’s photography department at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art institute, a fair portion of Philip Hyde’s landscape photography was documentary. Dorothea Lange had a significant impact on Philip Hyde and his classmates. She spent significant time in classes at CSFA as a guest lecturer, assistant and advisor to Minor White and the students. Dorothea Lange showed the power of photography in affecting social awareness. Philip Hyde applied what he learned to conservation photography as it transformed into modern environmentalism in the 1950s and 1960s. He became the “go-to-guy” for Sierra Club Executive Director David Brower and at times for other leaders such as the Wilderness Society’s Howard Zahniser, primary author of the Wilderness Act.

Eliot Porter was a doctor early in his photography career and later he came to the Sierra Club with his own completed ideas. Ansel Adams was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships to photograph the national parks. Meanwhile, Philip Hyde, young, motivated, talented, willing to work for little besides expenses, could take off on short notice wherever David Brower and other conservation leaders sent him to bring back images that would show them the beauty each place had to offer. Between the Exhibit Format Series and other photography books of the same era published by the Sierra Club, Philip Hyde had more photographs in more of the volumes than any other photographer.

This is the American Earth By Nancy Newhall and Ansel Adams Launched The Exhibit Format Series

The Exhibit Format Series was conceived in 1960 by Ansel Adams, Nancy Newhall and David Brower. The first book in the Series, This is the American Earth, mainly consisted of Ansel Adam’s landscape photographs and Nancy Newhall’s eloquent prose. The creators also invited a few other landscape photographers to participate such as Edward Weston, Minor White, Philip Hyde, Cedric Wright, William Garnett, Wynn Bullock, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eliot Porter, Pirkle Jones and others. An accompanying exhibition of the photographs toured nationally and internationally.

In Island In Time Is The Preservation of The First Master of Black and White, and Color Landscape Photography

In 1962, the Sierra Club published Eliot Porter’s In Wildness is the Preservation of the World.  It outsold all of the other books in the Exhibit Format Series including This is the American Earth. Eliot Porter became known as the photographer who introduced color to landscape photography. However, the same year the Sierra Club also published Island In Time: the Point Reyes Peninsula text by Harold Gilliam and landscape photographs by Philip Hyde. Island In Time was not a well-planned art project like In Wildness Is The Preservation Of The World. Island In Time was rushed through to have a book to show in fund raising efforts to buy the ranches of Point Reyes before developers bought the land and began to build homes. It had a more documentary look and purpose, but it also showed the world the impact of color and helped establish color photography as the new trend in publishing and printing. Island In Time: the Point Reyes Peninsula contained beautiful color landscape photographs as well as black and white images together for the first time. While Philip Hyde became the first landscape photographer to master both mediums, Island In Time helped establish Point Reyes National Seashore and color photography. For more on Philip Hyde’s black and white printing and transition to color printing see the blog post, “Black And White Prints, Collectors And Philip Hyde.” To read more about today’s trends and concerns in color landscape photography see the blog post, “Is Landscape Photography Thriving Or Dying?” and “Did Velvia Film Change Landscape Photography?” To read about Color Magazine’s feature article about Philip Hyde see the blog post, “Color Magazine Feature Out Now.”

References:

Sierra Club Records at Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley, California

Taped Interviews of Philip Hyde by David Leland Hyde

Taped Interviews of Martin Litton by David Leland Hyde

Notes from Conversations with Ken Brower

The History of the Sierra Club 1892-1970 by Michael P. Cohen

This is the American Earth by Nancy Newhall and Ansel Adams

In Wildness is the Preservation of the World photographs by Eliot Porter with quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Island In Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula text by Harold Gilliam, photographs by Philip Hyde

Ansel Adams: An Autobiography

Ansel Adams: A Biography by Mary Street Alinder

For Earth’s Sake: The Life and Times of David Brower by David Brower

Work In Progress by David Brower

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The Golden Decade: California School Of Fine Arts Photography

August 12th, 2010

The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts, 1945-55

September 4 – October 15, 2010  EXTENDED TO NOVEMBER 13, with a closing book signing and reception.

Opening Reception September 4, 2010, 6-9 pm

Golden Decade Poster. Students at the California School of Fine Arts during the first Golden Decade of Ansel Adam's photography department while Minor White was lead instructor, Edward Weston was field instructor and guest lectureres included Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Lisette Model and other definers of the medium.

The Golden Decade Group Exhibition and Book Preview

Smith Andersen North Gallery

20 Greenfield Avenue

San Anselmo, California  94960

415-455-9733

The Golden Decade: California School of Fine Arts Photography

From the Smith Andersen North website:

The California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) in San Francisco (renamed the San Francisco Art Institute in 1961) was among a handful of institutions in the nation to offer an extensive program in photography and film during the period immediately following WWII. The importance of the school and its influence, not only on West Coast Photography but on photography as a whole, has been far-reaching, lasting well into the 21st century.

Set up in 1945 by Ansel Adams and administered and taught by Minor White, the California School of Fine Arts photography program was the first academic department in the country to teach photography as a profession. The program raised the dialog around photographic practice, before limited to local photo clubs scattered about the country, to the level of a serious, focused study. Golden Decade Students were not only expected to be technically adept and informed, but thoughtful and intentional about how they approached the world with a camera. Golden Decade teachers were among the most influential figures in photography of the day; they included Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham, Lisette Model, Homer Page, Alma Lavenson, and Bill Quandt. For more on the inspiration of Edward Weston see the blog post, “Edward Weston’s Landscape Philosophy Part 1.” For insight into the influence of Minor White see the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 9.” For more about Minor White’s teaching and how he and Philip Hyde inspired each other see the blog post, “Minor White Letters 1.”

The First Decade at the California School of Fine Arts

The first decade of the program, 1945-1955, gave rise to a unique group of photographers who went on to become accomplished artists and important contributors to visual culture. The Golden Decade focuses on 32 of these students and how they influenced and supported each other during, and in the years following their time at the California School of Fine Arts. The California School of Fine Arts Golden Decade artists include Pirkle Jones, Ruth Marion Baruch, Philip Hyde, William Heick, Pat Harris, Bob Hollingsworth, Cameron Macauley, Ira Latour, Benjamen Chinn, Rose Mandel, David Myers, John Upton and others. Their work has been represented in important photographic historical events such as The Family of Man Exhibition (1955, New York and international venues) and The Perceptions Exhibition (1954, San Francisco), and many of these California School of Fine Arts photographers were prominently featured in the early issues of Aperture magazine. A number of Golden Decade photographers have had books published, notably Pirkle Jones with his wife, Ruth Marion Baruch, Philip Hyde, and John Upton.

For more about the Golden Decade of photography in San Francisco and the California School of Fine Arts see the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 6.” For more information and a follow-up review of the Golden Decade Opening Reception see the blog post, “Over 500 People Attend Golden Decade Opening.”

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Philip Hyde At Home In The Wilds 2

July 28th, 2010

The Now Defunct Darkroom Photography Magazine: Masters of the Darkroom Series Presents Part Two Of An Interview With Philip Hyde By Merry Selk Blodgett

At Home In The Wilds

CONTINUED FROM THE BLOG POST, “Philip Hyde At Home In The Wilds 1.” For more on early color printing and the dye transfer process, see also the blog posts, “The Legend Of Dye Transfer Printing 1,” and “The Legend of Dye Transfer Printing 2.”)

“Even after five years, I haven’t been able to get into all the refinements of the dye transfer process.”

Mt. Brooks, Brooks Range, Denali National Park, Alaska, 1971 by Philip Hyde. This photograph Philip Hyde made with the same tripod setup as his horizontal of "Mt. Denali, Wonder Lake." After he triggered the shutter on the Mt. Denali image, he swiveled the camera about one frame's width to the left and made this photograph. Edward Weston used to do this too. Actually, the two Philip Hyde Alaska photographs overlap. David Leland Hyde at age six was present for both on this rare sunny day in Denali National Park. This digital image and the prints made from it so far were from a flatbed Creo scan of a dye transfer print. You would think that scanning the print directly would cause the scan to match the dye transfer print. However, this image took more photoshop work to match the color balance, contrast and other qualities, particularly the sharpness of the original print than did "Mt. Denali, Wonder Lake, Alaska," which we drum scanned from a transparency. Recently we made a drum scan of the original transparency of the photograph above, "Mt. Brooks, Brooks Range, Alaska." The resulting file will help assure that future large archival fine art digital prints of this photograph will maintain Philip Hyde's high standards of sharpness, detail and color fidelity.

(To see the photograph full size, Click Here.)

(To see “Mt. Denali, Wonder Lake (Horizontal)” full size Click Here.)

(To see “Mt. Denali, Reflection Pond (Vertical)” full size Click Here.)

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: How does your dye transfer printing relate to your primary objective of portraying nature?

PHILIP HYDE: I have always wanted to interpret and express the beauty of what I see in nature. My major objective is producing a print that, as Ansel Adams says, carries out the score of the negative. So I orchestrate the dye transfer process to produce a print that conveys the colors and beauty of the original transparencies. Sometimes getting everything just right can be very time-consuming.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: Are you ever tempted to go back out into the field and let a custom lab do the darkroom work for you?

PHILIP HYDE: No…it would be very hard for me to sell a print made by a lab as my own work. That’s really why I’m doing dye transfer printing, because I can carry the process all the way from start to finish. I make the print the way I want. Also, there’s a cost factor. A single dye transfer print from a custom lab costs $200 and up.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: You mentioned before that the longevity of the dye transfer process appealed to you. How long do you expect your prints to last?

PHILIP HYDE: Well, that’s hard to say; hundreds of years I’d hope. The nice thing about dye transfer is that not only is the final color image quite stable, but the intermediate films, the separations, which contain all the color information, are actually black and white. So a basic record of the color image exists on black and white film, which, if archivally processed and stored, can last for thousands of years. That’s more than permanent enough for me. Another reason I’m into making dye transfers of my transparencies is that I have to send out my originals for reproduction in books and magazines, and they are often returned after reproduction with thumbprints or dirt all over them. If I’ve made dye transfer separations beforehand, I’m protected.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: How did you first get interested in photography?

PHILIP HYDE: When I was 16, I went backpacking in the Sierra with the Scouts. I took a folding Kodak with me, and I got hooked on it. I guess it’s just like falling in love with anything. When I sent the films to the druggist, I thought the results were completely inadequate, so at age 17, I set up a darkroom and started working. Though I now work in color, most of my early work was black and white.

“Imogen Cunningham is a wonderful example—she just kept on being a photographer until she faded away.”

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: Over the years, you’ve collaborated with the Sierra Club to produce books that have been instrumental in saving wildernesses, books like Slickrock, about the southwestern Canyonlands, and Alaska: The Great Land. How did you first become involved with the Sierra Club?

PHILIP HYDE:  When I returned to San Francisco from the service in 1946, I enrolled in Ansel Adams’ new photography program at the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute. I became interested in what the Sierra Club was doing at that time, so Ansel introduced me to Dave Brower (then Sierra Club Executive Director), and that was the beginning of a life-long relationship.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: Do you ever think of retiring from photography?

PHILIP HYDE: I can’t think of what I’d retire from, or for, or to. It disturbs me to slow down when there’s so much more to be done. Imogen Cunningham is a wonderful example—she just kept on being a photographer until she faded away. That’s a great way to go.

For the story of how Philip Hyde finally did go see the blog post, “Earth Day Celebration Of Ardis And Philip Hyde And Canyonlands.”

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