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Ansel Adams And Paul Strand On Self-Promotion and Exhibitions

July 7th, 2011

Split Boulder Near Lake Ediza, The Minarets, Ansel Adams Wilderness, Sierra Nevada, California, 1950 by Philip Hyde. First exhibited in the original "Perceptions" exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1954 with the work of the members of Group f.64, Minor White, his students and a few other Bay Area photographers. This exhibition many consider one of the foundations that defined what became known as the West Coast tradition.

(To see the photograph full screen Click Here.)

In reading the letters between Paul Strand and Ansel Adams from the Center for Creative Photography’s publication, The Archive, it quickly becomes apparent that the times then were quite different. The first exchange of letters between the two photographers in 1933 occurred during the Great Depression, when photography was almost unheard of and even other forms of art were comparatively scarce in relation to the volumes produced today.

To compete and be heard in the market today, a photographer must not only make good photographs, but also promote tastefully. Writing well online also helps to develop a following. One of today’s photographers succeeding in all three is Guy Tal. I have mentioned him before on this blog and I mention him again, because what he writes often relates to what I am learning about the history of photography and because he recommended my blog to his readers. I like Guy Tal’s blog, not because I always agree with him, but because he has a knack for stirring up ideas, thoughts and opinions and getting people to participate. Recently he wrote a blog post called, “Small Confession,” in which he acknowledges the necessity of self-promotion but confesses that he respects photographers who do it reluctantly more than those who revel in it.

Shortly after reading this post, I started reading the letters between Paul Strand and Ansel Adams. These two pioneers, despite what it appears to us now, were also reluctant self-promoters. However, they lived in a time when people were looking for something new artistically and there wasn’t all that much being created of note. Along came people like Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Paul Strand, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and others. These people offered something that had never been seen before.

Straight photography was not a stuffy, constraining, self-contradicting notion as it is seen by some today. It was a huge Wow, and also freeing and energizing to the medium. Also, these artists did not have to promote themselves as loudly to be heard, because there was much less noise then and fewer voices vying for the public’s attention. People mobbed most of the events of the straight photographers. Perhaps those who look at straight photography as out-dated and old-fashioned, will have justification for that opinion when their events are packed because they have invented something striking and new enough to draw hoards of people.

The first time Ansel Adams wrote to Paul Strand, he reminded him of their meeting and mentioned meeting with Alfred Stieglitz in New York City. Then Ansel Adams told Paul Strand that he had opened a small gallery…

My place is most decidedly not an imitation of Stieglitz’; I wrote him at great length and outlined my plans—I told him I was going to alternate my exhibits between photography and painting or graphic arts, that I was not a missionary or a promoter, and that I did not care if I made anything out of the gallery or not—I only hoped it would pay its own rent. I am trying to bring things to San Francisco that should have come many years ago.

Ansel Adams went on to ask Paul Strand if he would be interested in exhibiting his photographs at Ansel Adams’ gallery. Paul Strand wrote back…

Actually I have little interest in exhibitions—because at the basis they seem to be un-American—just a mean and meaningless affair; mean in that they exploit the artist to entertain the public free of charge—meaningless in that they seldom establish any standards.

I turned down three museums last year in just the above terms—Their impudence and complete ignorance of what they are doing is just disgusting—They think that flattery is a substitute—but they can all go to hell as far as I am concerned—for I refuse to be part of that racket—that is my general feeling about exhibitions—I can never get used to the idea that pictures are free entertainment in the U.S., elsewhere too, that the people who claim to enjoy a thing never support the individual who makes what gives them pleasure.

Paul Strand went on to explain that it was difficult to send his prints out of Mexico, where he was living at the time, for fear they might be damaged, and that he might entertain the idea if he could ever make it to San Francisco in person. Paul Strand told Ansel Adams of a show he had in Mexico under extenuating circumstances, that over 3,000 people came to see in 10 days. Not bad for someone who despised the whole idea. For more about the photography of Paul Strand see the blog posts, “Straight Photography And Abstraction,” and “Photography’s Golden Era 5.”

(This blog post was originally posted March 24, 2010.)

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Photography’s Golden Era 11

May 26th, 2011

California School of Fine Arts Fall 1947 Photography Class

(Continued from the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 10,” about the California School of Fine Arts Photography Department application questions.)

Windswept Pass And Clouds, Yosemite High Country, Yosemite National Park, Sierra Nevada, California, copyright 1949 by Philip Hyde.

(See the photograph full screen Click Here.)

“In the early classes with Ansel Adams, we were with him all the time, day and night,” said Ira Latour, photographer and a co-author of “The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts 1945-1955.” Ira Latour enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute, in the first classes Ansel Adams offered in 1945. Ira Latour also took the first full-time class that started in the Fall of 1946.

“We were in class with Ansel and in the field with him,” Said Ira Latour. “In the evenings we either printed in the darkroom or got together at Ansel’s house in San Francisco.” The Summer Session 1946, besides being an intensive round-the-clock photography experience, was also an opportunity for students to either show they were ready for the full-time professional training classes or were to continue in the evening classes for amateurs that served as a basis for a semi-professional training.

By September 1947 there were 20 full-time students for the new fall professional class. Nearly all of the students in the Fall 1947 photography class were World War II veterans enrolled using their G.I. Benefits. Ansel Adam’s photography department at the California School of Fine Arts had been inundated with applications from soldiers recently discharged from the armed services. The 20 full-time students selected out of hundreds that applied were as Minor White described them, “Full of plans after the long futility of no planning; older, most of them experienced in photography… and in school because they chose to be.”

The Class Of 1947′s Major Names In Photography

In his book “The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts,” Jeff Gunderson wrote that the majority of these students had learned photography in the armed services. He added that the Fall 1947 Class included an African American student, David S. Johnson, later famous for his Jazz era photographs of San Francisco’s Fillmore District, two Chinese American students, Charles Wong and Benjamen Chinn, who both became noted photographers. The class also included celebrated documentary and portrait photographer Pirkle Jones, who worked with Dorothea Lange, as well as Pirkle Jones’ future wife who also became a well-known photographer Ruth-Marion Baruch. In letters to Ansel Adams, Minor White praised the work of a number of students, in particular the nature photographs of Philip Hyde and the portraits and natural scenes by Bill Heick. Don Whyte, Ira Latour, Bob Hollingsworth, Helen Howell, Pat Harris, Walter Stoy, John Rogers, and Al Richter all started at the California School of Fine Arts in the Fall 1947 photography class and went on to become prominent photographers in the West Coast tradition.

Who Were The Advanced Students And When Did The Students Socialize?

Philip Hyde later said that some of the students started the class with more advanced photography skills than he did. He said that the more advanced students headed out into the field right away. “Some were more interested in taking pictures of people and some more interested in the outdoors,” Philip Hyde said. “Each student’s preferences were indulged fully. Ben Chinn and many others were independent types. Ben had been photographing since he was 10 years old.”

Benjamen Chinn concurred that many students were more advanced, but did not include himself in that group. He said that Philip Hyde had taken photography classes since high school. He pointed out that Philip Hyde went to Polytechnic High School, a technically oriented high school. Benjamen Chinn also said that Philip Hyde took photography classes at San Francisco City College. The student-instructor Bill Quandt and Benjamen Chinn had both been photographers at Gabriel High School and at San Francisco City College as well. Benjamen Chinn gave more background and explained why he did not get as much feedback as some of the other students:

The rest of the students sometimes would gather around and B. S. about photography and what they photographed. I had my own darkroom. Usually I attended class then came home and did my own work. So, I never knew, I never had any feedback on my own photography from Minor or Ansel until after I turned my work in. I never did know how I was doing. Philip, your dad, only lately told me, maybe 10 years ago, that the people in class would talk about me and wonder what I would come up with for my assignment. I did everything at home. They never knew what I was going to do. They were always interested. They were surprised when I turned in my assignments or they saw my prints at the print exchange parties. The print exchanges were the only times when Minor and Ansel and some of the other instructors saw my work.

Benjamen Chinn explained further about student efforts to understand Ansel Adams’ concepts and how it brought them together:

Maybe I would just skip and go home. Another classmate, George Wallace, and I became friends when Ansel was giving the zone system. It was very, very complicated. George and I and anther guy by the name of Jerry Seward had engineering training. George Wallace was an engineer for US Steel. The way he got into photography was that his family owned US Pipe and it went down after World War II. George made a deal with his brother to sell him his share of the company. George offered his brother $500/month plus his brother would also pay for tuition for him at photography school. Because of his technical and engineering background George sort of understood what Ansel was talking about. Ansel talked about graphs and exposure care, exposure relationship with density, and a lot of people didn’t know what he was talking about. Somehow George Wallace knew, I don’t know how he knew that I could not understand it. I invited him home to my darkroom and we discussed it among the three of us, including Jerry Seward. We talked about the problem of how to explain it to other students. We also used to get together with other students at homes. The student-teacher Bill Quandt used to get the students to go down to North Beach to a cafe called Vesuvio. It was right across from the Save Right Book Shop. We used to get five cent beers and hang out. Now we have all known each other for 60 years or more.

Vesuvio Cafe And The Rise Of North Beach As  A Hip Artist’s Hangout

Benjamen Chinn held that the lifetime friendships that developed in photography school started with discussions about photography, efforts to solve homework problems for class and otherwise just enjoying each other’s company down at Vesuvio. At Vesuvio they sometimes drank beer or other alcoholic beverages, but just as often they had sodas or something to eat. North Beach in the late 1940s and early 1950s already had become an interesting part of town with artists, musicians and the beginnings of what would become the epicenter of the beat generation on the West Coast.

By the mid to late 1950s, just down off Russian Hill where the California School of Fine Arts would soon become the San Francisco Art Institute, many beat generation writers such as William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg made their homes in North Beach. Today the North Beach neighborhood “overflows with independent literature cafes, old-world delicatessens, jazz clubs and gelato parlors,” reads the San Francisco Art Institute website. Besides the cultural experience of North Beach that developed after World War II and is still thriving today, “Close enough to hear the sea lions barking at Pier 39” is Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco’s most visited neighborhood.

As far as developing a vibrant art culture like New York City, San Francisco was just starting to blossom after World War II. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SFMoMA, did not have much space. “They were located on the third and fourth floors of the Veterans Hall,” Benjamen Chinn said. “They didn’t do much for photography then yet.”

To read more about the forthcoming book, Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts, 1945-1955, and the special exhibition to honor Golden Decade photographers see the blog post, “The Golden Decade: California School of Fine Arts Photography.”

This series was to continue in a blog post called, “Photography’s Golden Era 12,” but the series will take the new title “San Francisco Art Institute Photography History.” The next post in the series can therefore be found under the name, “San Francisco Art Institute Photography History, Part 12.”

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Did Velvia Film Change Landscape Photography?

May 12th, 2011

Did the “over-saturation” of landscape photographs start with digital printing and Photoshop, or did it originate well before that in the film era with the advent of Fuji Velvia Film and Kodak Ektachrome E100VS Film? Is “over-saturation” a myth?

Urban Railroad Distortion, Reno, Nevada, copyright 2009 by David Leland Hyde. Nikon D90. Post-processed in Photoshop.

In his 1993 book Galen Rowell’s Vision: The Art of Adventure Photography, Galen Rowell wrote a chapter called Velvet Media in which he extolled the virtues of Fuji Velvia film, with some cautions. Galen Rowell wrote:

After twenty-five years of using Kodachrome film whenever sharpness was of the utmost importance, I abruptly gave up on it in February 1990 after seeing tests of an amazing new slide film from Japan…. Fuji’s introduction of ISO 50 Velvia at the Photo Marketing Association show in Las Vegas… After I returned home, I ran controlled comparisons of Velvia against Kodachrome 25, Kodachrome 64 and Fuji Pro 50. On my own light table the next morning, I clearly saw the end of an era. Velvia was the best of all existing worlds. Its resolution exceeded that of Kodachrome 25 and the other test films in high-contrast tests simulating daylight and equaled Kodachrome 25 in soft light. Its color saturation and separation of tones exceeded those of Fuji Pro 50 and the other films. I was aware that many photographers would prefer Kodachrome’s relatively muted colors, but I believed much of this was due to a conditioned constancy illusion that Kodachrome slides accurately represented the natural world. I knew better and fully expected Velvia to establish a new constancy illusion with picture editors and the public… I wanted to see the world freshly through this new tool and to push it to the limit to see what it would do. Over the years, the limitations of other films had caused me to consider certain kinds of subject matter and lighting as impossible. Murky renditions of greens in shadow under a blue sky on Kodachrome became vivid on Velvia. Fuji Pro 50 renditions of delicate foliage have very strong color, but also a lack of resolution that calls attention to itself, especially when compared with Kodachrome 25. Velvia holds both color and sharpness.… I soon began asking, ‘Is anything wrong with this film?’ not only to myself but to other users. The few negative answers had to do with too strong colors and a slower film speed than the advertised ISO 50.

In early 2010, in the comments on Steve Sieren’s blog post, “Ever Wonder About The History Of Landscape Photography?” large format landscape photographer Michael Gordon commented about how Fuji Velvia film had changed Landscape Photography. Michael Gordon first did a blog post about Velvia in 2008. In his 2010 comment, Michael Gordon said, “Want to be shocked? Compare Hyde’s “Drylands” photos to the current crop of Velvia-ized desert landscape photographs. Porter too. Not many years have passed, and despite the drying climate, the desert sure got a lot more vibrant in photographs!” Other comments on Steve Sieren’s blog post addressed the effect Velvia film had in the hands of various landscape photographers and its general impact on all landscape photography.

Many galleries, museums, photographers and others blame “over-saturation,” if it exists and can be defined, on the advent of the digital age and Photoshop, but here we see much evidence that “over-saturation” began long before. Also in 2010, outdoor, documentary and landscape photographer Carr Clifton offered his thoughts and possible explanation as to what happened in landscape photography from 1990 through the early years of the new millennium. Carr Clifton said, “When we first started printing digitally, we were used to trying to get the richest and even the hottest color out of whatever film we were using. Many films didn’t have the rich color palette that we now see. The same thing happened back in the 1990s with Velvia. Velvia was different because for the first time, it offered too much color, more than you see in nature. When everybody started scanning film and making digital prints, even the scans of Velvia were too gaudy.”

On reading Galen Rowell’s Outdoor Photographer features, Sierra Magazine articles and several of his books I discovered that he wrote more eloquently about photography than perhaps just about anyone else ever, with the possible exception of Robert Adams, Charis Wilson, Edward Weston, Minor White and Ansel Adams at times. That puts Galen Rowell at the top of all writers on photography. He is also admirable as a landscape photographer because he was self-taught. My father, pioneer landscape photographer Philip Hyde has been said by many of the who’s who of photography today to have influenced a generation of photographers. See the blog posts, “How Color Came To Landscape Photography,” “The Golden Decade: California School Of Fine Arts Photography,” and the series beginning with the blog post, “The Battle Over Dinosaur: Birth Of Modern Environmentalism.”

Notwithstanding, Galen Rowell also influenced a generation, the next generation, our generation, the landscape photographers just coming into prominence now. Galen Rowell was also one of the most talented photographers who ever lived. He was the master of “fast and light” and capturing unusually powerful landscape photographs. When we showed the Philip Hyde exhibition at Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light Gallery, I found through talking to guests and staff that Galen Rowell was also known as a life-changing mentor, a generous mountain guide, a driven activist for various conservation and social causes and a dynamic leader of an organization of top quality people who continue to inspire the world. However, some segments of the art establishment hardly recognize him because they feel he overdid the color. Carr Clifton, who also greatly admired Galen Rowell put forward the theory that when Velvia film first emerged on the scene and also in the early days of digital printing, that Galen Rowell went a little far with the color, but never lived to rein in when other photographers did.

“It was around 2003-2004 that everybody started to pull back some and bring their color back into the realm of reality,” Carr Clifton said. “All except for a few blatant examples that remain. Galen, unfortunately for all of photography, died in the plane crash in early 2002. We were all very sad about it. Now Galen’s prints are frozen in a state of too much syrup. He never made it to the time in 2003-2004 when everyone backed their color off.” Because Galen was so admired, there are now many photographers who try to do what he did with sunrise-drenched mountain tops, brilliant reflections and ultra-vivid colors. Other landscape photographers agree with Carr Clifton. They believe that Galen Rowell might very well have pushed his own work back down the color saturation scale if he had lived. It’s all conjecture, but an interesting theory and something to consider in view of how much landscape photographers try to emulate Galen Rowell’s work. For more about other concerns over the direction of landscape photography today see the blog post, “Is Landscape Photography Thriving Or Dying?” For a new way to look at it and other remedies see the blog post, “What Urban Exploration Photography Learned From Nature.”

Travel and landscape photographer Richard Wong wrote on this subject in November 2010:

…Galen did have a large audience probably due to several factors, one of which was a long relationship with Outdoor Photographer Magazine dating back to the beginning from what I understand, but even before that he had “street cred” in the outdoor community for being a prolific adventurer and rock climber. There were photographers just as good if not better out there at all the different things he did but he was able to connect with and convey his philosophy to his audience much more effectively than most. He was a great writer. And also someone who was always striving to innovate. Looking at his body of work, you can clearly see the evolution over the years. You also have a good point about the color. I was told that his staff worked on those digital masters from his slides in the years prior to his death and probably against advisement, he wanted to push the envelop on the saturation. You can tell by looking at some of his prints up close at his gallery and also in some of his books that some highlight detail was probably sacrificed due to saturation. His Evolution Lake image for example. With that said, I have always overlooked that phase of his career because that doesn’t define his body of work. One thing I’ve always pondered is what Galen would be doing now on the Nikon D700 if he were still around. Breaking new ground for photography I would imagine.

Fuji Velvia film was not the only film that amped up the saturation. Galen Rowell provided a warning against overdoing the color saturation in this quote also from the 1995 book, Galen Rowell’s Vision: The Art of Adventure Photography:

 

Much of what people were saying when Velvia first came out applies to Kodak E100VS today. Sometimes it looks garish, sometimes it looks great, and much of the time it will produce the image that editors will choose. Kodak E100VS often produces bright colors closer to what you believe you saw in flat light or at a distance, but if you use it all the time, you risk having the sum total of your style appear garish and suspect. In direct light this film doesn’t just come near the edge of the color saturation envelope; it moves beyond into a realm that requires the same sort of restraint as the use of color-enhancing filters does.

Probably the same could be said for the color saturation adjustment slider in Photoshop. What do you think? Is “over-saturation” an overblown issue? Is it a myth? Is over-saturation a problem in landscape photography today?

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Monday Blog Blog: Ansel Adams In The National Parks

February 28th, 2011

Book Review: Ansel Adams In The National Parks: Photographs From America’s Wild Places

Highlights Of And About The Essays And The Photographs

 

Ansel Adams In The National Parks by Ansel Adams. Little, Brown and Company, 2010. Amazon.com price $22.72.

How to add to what other reviewers have said? Ansel Adams In The National Parks has been reviewed in a number of other venues online (see list of relevant posts below), which represents a sizable marketing and publicity outlay for Little, Brown and Company. Little Brown was kind enough to send me a review copy as a gift, thank you to Little Brown and the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust as well as the Center For Creative Photography. I imagine the other reviewers received advanced review copies to aid their review efforts too.

Below is what I like and dislike about this new release. I highly applaud the book and offer some criticism too. Ansel Adams in the National Parks: Photographs from America’s Wild Places (Amazon) is a beautiful addition to anyone’s library. The look and feel of this new volume about Ansel Adams, pleases the senses and says quality all the way, yet the book is reasonably priced at only $40.00. Considering the book displays “more than 225 photographs” and the reader discovers “many rarely seen and 50 never before published” Ansel Adams photographs. These facts alone make it worth owning. The new binding of  Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs, Ansel Adams In Color and Ansel Adams In The National Parks: Photographs From America’s Wild Places are all similar in attractive design and style: block lettering on white covers with smaller photographs on front and back.

In Ansel Adams In The National Parks I was happy to find many Ansel Adams photographs I have never seen before. The far majority of his photographs of the national parks in the book are a supreme joy to discover. There are perhaps half a dozen or less that I thought were below the standards of what Ansel Adams himself would have published. Ansel Adams was very particular about which of his photographs he printed and published. He printed only about 900 images out of his 50,000 original negatives.

I liked the notes and letters between Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall and Beaumont Newhall, when they either traveled together or wrote to each other about Ansel Adams’ travels and photography on his Guggenheim to photograph the National Parks.

I also enjoyed reading darkroom black and white photographer John Sexton on printing Ansel Adams photographs in the 1970s.

It is always a treat to read Wallace Stegner. His essays are well-informed and well-argued. As good as his essays are, his fiction is even better. Why not use new essays rather than reprints of essays published in previous books about Ansel Adams? Plenty of high quality credentialed essayists would love the opportunity to write about Ansel Adams in the National Parks.

The essays in the back of Ansel Adams In The National Parks, sing, especially the last essay by William A. Turnage “Ansel Adams, Environmentalist.” William A. Turnage’s prose is lyrical as he praises and passionately gives tribute to his life-long friend and partner. The two essays by Richard B. Woodward, “Ansel Adams In The National Parks” on the travels of Ansel Adams, Nancy Newhall and Beaumont Newhall and “Ansel Adams and the Preservation of Wilderness,” each provide a well-written and fascinating short history lesson. In “Ansel Adams and the Preservation of Wilderness”  Richard B. Woodward wrote:

As our sense of what happened yesterday or decades ago is often as muddled and contentious as our plans for the future, a mechanical process that provides more or less realistic evidence of the world as it once was can be of immense practical and political value…. Architecture historians in several European countries understood this vital function of photography soon after Daguerre took credit for inventing it in 1839. In France the government had already founded the Commission des Monuments Historiques in 1837 and assigned it to compile a list of old decaying medieval and Renaissance structures—cathedrals, parks, chateaus, villages—imperiled by neglect…. In 1851, the Commission selected five photographers—Edourd-Denis Baldus, Hippolyte Bayard, Gustave Le Gray, Henri Le Secq, and O. Mestral—for an elite unite that operated under the name La Mission Heliographique. It was perhaps the first time, though by no means the last, that photographers were hired in a noble-minded effort to preserve valuable parts of the world, in this case a centuries-old heritage that France was in danger of forfeiting unless quick action was taken to save these crumbling and irreplaceable sites….

Richard B. Woodward continued with sections on how photographs helped protect Yosemite National Park, Yellowstone, and many other conservation causes all over the world. Then he wrote about Ansel Adams’ leadership in the transformation of photography and its establishment as an art form:

By organizing the exhibition Group f.64 in 1932—with Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and others—Adams became an eloquent spokesman for “straight photography” in San Francisco and far beyond….Finally no photographer except Stieglitz did more to win acceptance for photography as a fine art. In 1940, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York created a separate department of photography, the first in the world, Adams became one of its founding fathers. Without training as a scholar or curator, he was nonetheless instrumental in the rediscovery of Watkins, Jackson, and O’Sullivan. By extolling their achievements to Beaumont Newhall and others in the museum community, he helped to construct a nascent art historical continuum for landscape photography. His own international prominence as an artist toward the end of his life altered the material conditions for those choosing to take the medium in that direction. In the 1970s, prints by Adams became one of the pillars of an emerging market for photographs as an art collectible, for sale in galleries and auction houses. The select but not inconsiderable number of photographers lucky enough to earn a living today from sales of their prints have Adams to thank for proving this could be done. Despite an altered context and a newfound respect for photographers within the realm of contemporary art, his pictures remain basic to the photography market and show no sign of diminishing in prevalence twenty-five years after his death.

Related Posts:

“Ansel Adams In The National Parks” Ansel Adams Gallery

“Black And White Prints, Collectors And Philip Hyde” Fine Art Photography Collector’s Resource

“Ansel Adams In The National Parks” National Parks Traveler

“Ansel Adams In The National Parks” Travel Blissful

“Review: Ansel Adams In The National Parks” JMG Galleries

“Ansel Adams In The National Parks” Photonaturalist

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Photography’s Golden Era 10

February 22nd, 2011

California School of Fine Arts Application Questions

(Continued from the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 9” in which Philip Hyde shared how the teaching of Minor White and Ansel Adams differed. For more on the teaching of Minor White and Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute see also the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 7.”)

Locomotive Drive Gear Parts, Northwest Pacific Railroad Yards, Tiburon, Marin County, California, 1948 by Philip Hyde. Part of a photography school project.

(See the photograph full screen Click Here.)

Ansel Adams taught the 1946 Summer Session at the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute. The 1946 Summer Session, besides being an intensive round-the-clock photography experience, was also an opportunity for students to either show they were ready for the full-time professional training classes or were to stay with more of the evening classes geared more toward amateurs and semi-professional training.

In his book The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts, Jeff Gunderson wrote that by the Fall 1946 class, a more in-depth application had also been devised to better determine whether students were ready for the full-time course. By September 1947 there were 20 full-time students for the new fall class. Due to a mix up, Philip Hyde’s application did not get processed for the Fall 1946 Class. He had to wait until the Fall 1947 Class to start at the San Francisco Art Institute. For the story of what he did for that year read the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 6.”

We have not yet found Philip Hyde’s application for enrollment. He must have filled out one of the forms below, either in 1946 or 1947. The following are the application questions for the Fall 1947 California School of Fine Arts Photography Department full-time student application:

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS

800 CHESTNUT STREET

SAN FRANCISCO  11, CAL.

Because of the great number of requests for entrance in the Photography class of Fall 1947, it has become necessary to ask you to answer a few questions. It will aid us greatly in selecting students for the Fall class if you will answer them as carefully as possible.

NAME:                                                                                    DATE:

ADDRESS:

1.     Age?

2.     What schooling have you had?

3.     Are your abilities and preferences more mechanical than intellectual? Do you do things with your hands well or only moderately well?

4.     What kind of music do you like best?

5.     Why do you want to learn photography?

6.     If you have had less than two years of university or college training, why do you seek to enter a photography school rather than go to college or complete your work there? (It is recommended that all potential photographers obtain a college degree before attempting to become professionals, although this is not an essential condition of entrance to this school.)

7.     If you have finished college, what was your major and minor and what extra-curricular activities did you have?

8.     Do you intend to aim for the high bracket money reputed to be available to the top-flight commercial or journalistic photographer?

9.     Are you willing to accept a low wage standard for most of your life in order to follow photography as a means of expressing yourself? In other words, do you wish most of all to use the camera as an art medium?

10.  Briefly stated, what are your impressions of the following photographers?  Valentino Sara, Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Edward Steichen, Lisette Model, Berenice Abbott, D.O. Hill, Alfred Stieglitz, George Hurell, George Platt Lynes.

11.  What cameras have you worked with? What experience have you had with photography?

12.  What is your opinion of the present day Salon?

(Please use separate sheet of paper for answers.)

For background on the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute see the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 8.” To read a summary of the beginnings of Ansel Adam’s photography department, the first art school program to teach photography as a full-time profession, see the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 1.” To read the controversy over whether the present day is another Golden Era, see the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 2.” Find an overview of the first straight photography, Paul Strand, Group f64 and Alfred Stieglitz in the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 5” and the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 3.” To read about other early influences on Philip Hyde and his father’s wilderness painting, see the blog posts, “Photography’s Golden Era 4,” and “Minor White Letters 1.” For an overview of Philip Hyde’s black and white printing and role in the introduction of color to landscape photography see the blog post, “Black And White Prints, Collectors And Philip Hyde.”

The series will continue in the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 11.”

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Monday Blog Blog: Creative Landscape Photography By Guy Tal

February 7th, 2011

Reviewed, Revelled And Recommended: Guy Tal’s New E-Book, Creative Landscape Photography, Second Edition

Cover For "Creative Landscape Photography, Second Edition" by Guy Tal.

The goal is not to make you creative. Whether you know it or not, you already are. The chal­lenge, rather, is learning to tap into and focus your creativity and to help it find its ultimate expression in a photographic image.  –Guy Tal

“In his new e-book “Creative Landscape Photography, Second Edition,” Guy Tal starts by going back to the basics, yet continues on far beyond the basics. Guy Tal shows you how to identify and develop the concept of each photograph. He also shows you how to train your mind and eye to recognize elements that can become photographs in scenes and objects around you.

He encourages you to discover what moves you emotionally in nature and then what to do with that to make more powerful landscape photographs. “The more profound your feelings, the more moving and interesting your work will be,” Guy Tal said in “Creative Landscape Photography.” This new e-book is inspirational in nature, much like Guy Tal’s popular blog/journal.

A quote from Minor White sets the tone for Guy Tal’s exercises on taking a visual inventory, telling the story of your image, developing the concept and visualization:

I seek out places where it can happen more readily, such as deserts or mountains or solitary areas, or by myself with a seashell, and while I’m there get into states of mind where I’m more open than usual. I’m waiting, I’m listening. I go to those places and get myself ready through meditation. through being quiet and willing to wait, I can begin to see the inner man and the essence of the subject in front of me. – Minor White

This quote by Minor White reminds me of the inner techniques learned by the photographers who studied with Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White in the first 10 years of the photography department during what is now being called the Golden Decade at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. Each of the Golden Decade photographers I have interviewed or photographed with, said that getting into this quiet, creative space is one of the more important skills they learned in photography school.

The California School of Fine Arts photographers also learned about visualization. Guy Tal defines and quantifies the process for easier absorbtion. His Visualization checklist gives you various aspects of the photograph and its making in your mind ahead of time including contrast, dynamic range, composition, exposure and a number of others.

Guy Tal also recommends slowing down and making photographs at a pace where you can take a break and come back to your work. “Looking at anything for too long may color your judgment,” Guy warns. “Before releasing the shutter, take a step back, close your eyes for a few seconds, reopen them, and examine your composition anew.

“Creative Landscape Photography” provides guidelines and productive exercises, but cautions against the overuse of rules:

…No work of art hanging in the Louvre was painted by numbers, renowned chefs did not become so by following cookbook recipes, and Nobel prizes are not awarded for repeating somebody else’s achievements. On the other hand, progress is often made by those standing on the shoulders of giants, and age-old wisdom should not be dismissed. Take the gifts of the elders and develop them forward. Contribute something of your own making for future generations.

Throughout the e-book you will find Guy Tal’s own magnificent landscape photographs as high quality examples of each of the concepts he presents.

The only improvement the e-book needs is in diagrams. It needs more diagrams and maybe even pictures to help explain the text in the histogram chapter and other more technical sections. There are some diagrams, that are excellent. The e-book needs more.

The text is loaded with other small chunks of wisdom that will bring new results:

Though some critics and collectors prize specialization and consistency, you can decide at a later time how to structure your portfolio and what to present to whom. When out in the field, though, try to silence all voices other than your own…. To many advanced photographers, finding and developing a distinct and recognizable personal style is the pinnacle of creative expression. Many, however, fall into the trap of placing more emphasis on a recognizable style rather than a personal one.

Guy Tal does not skimp on solid real-world advice. He goes into some depth on a number of technical issues while his writing about these remains accessible to non-technical readers. I enjoyed his discussion of exposure and the use of the histogram to ensure detail in your entire photograph. Besides being about creative composition, Guy Tal also gives us highly instructive chapters and sections on other considerations of image capture. Besides using the histogram to maximize detail, he also explains how to arrange settings for the best captures when you intend to stitch two or more images to get detail in both highlights and shadows.

To wind up, Guy Tal carries us through presentation options, final print size, matting, signing, even lighting and hanging, and other final considerations.

While Guy Tal clearly believes in getting the most out of the digital darkroom to enhance the final performance of the print, he also shows a dedication to a certain aesthetic of realism and explains why it is important. Guy Tal’s next photographic e-book will be about creative processing techniques for creative landscape photography.

I strongly believe that photography is the most restrictive of the visual arts but at the same time has the potential to make the most impact for one simple reason: photographs have a binding connection with real events, real elements, real light, and real moments in time. Any blatant departure from these realities can cause an image to be dismissed regardless of other aesthetic qualities.

To order “Creative Landscape Photography, Second Edition” go to Guy Tal Photography E-Book In PDF Format.

For more insights on important concerns read two recent blog posts by Guy Tal, “Photography and the Environment” and “Macro Environmentalism.”

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Monday Blog Blog Celebration

January 10th, 2011

Oaks, Alders, Conifer Forest, Indian Creek, Northern Sierra Nevada, California, 2010 by David Leland Hyde. This photograph was tied with several others for first runner-up for "My Favorite Photos Of 2010." By the way, this is a color photograph. It was not a black and white photograph in-camera, nor was it converted.

The new year will bring some new developments to Landscape Photography Blogger. It will remain low-profile for now and an alternative medicine for good landscape photography based on my father and his colleagues’ approach to photography and life. It is alternative in that it is a develop-through-observation Travel Log, Interview and experience-based platform rather than another outlet for step-by-step rules, laws, principles, guidelines, doctrine, dogma, canons, policies and procedures. You still won’t see anybody’s 14 Easy Steps, or Nine Sure-Fire Tips here.

Nonetheless, not all photography training and pointers online consist of rules and artificial teaching structures. Technique is important and best taught by those who are masters of it. Being able to look under the hood of the systems and methods of other landscape photographers is useful and often energizing. Landscape Photography Blogger intends to do more from now on to help people find these resources around the photo blogosphere. Also, I am often impressed by and learn from the photography I see online. I intend to provide a platform through which work of quality can be passed along to readers.

In addition, I have run across many photographers who seem to be carrying on an updated form of the excellence that my father learned studying under Ansel Adams, Minor White, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham and Dorothea Lange. Some people call it the West Coast tradition, some call it straight photography, some call it lots of other names both complimentary and derogatory, but originally in its time it transformed photography, spearheaded by Group f64 and their students. The more landscape photographers believe they are moving beyond it, the more they espouse it. Ansel Adams was not dictatorial about his approach to photography. He welcomed photographers of many sizes and shapes to teach with him, but they were required to have a professional attitude and they had to be committed to the highest quality possible as he was. In short they were the best.

Landscape photographers like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston might be somewhat bewildered by all that is going on in photography now, but they would probably also be energized, enthused and impressed with much of the work being done today. Landscape Photography Blogger is becoming a conduit for discussion and exploration for many non-photographers and photographers at all levels. As such I will do more community building and looking around within the community to see what coalitions and connections can be made. As a step toward this, I am going to designate Monday as a day to feature or celebrate other blogs, websites or resources from around the world wide web and the photography blogosphere in particular. Starting next week, we will debut what I will call, “Monday Blog Blog.” It’s a silly name and it might not always happen on Monday or necessarily every single week, but the intent is for it to be a regular feature and a service to readers.

Stay tuned for other new developments…

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Posted in David's Perspective

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Color Magazine Feature Out Now

January 4th, 2011

Cirios Silhouettes At Sundown, Baja California, Mexico, 1984 by Philip Hyde. This photograph appears on the title page of the March 2011, Issue 12 of Color Magazine, along with 14 other photographs in the feature article.

March Issue #12 Of Color Magazine Featuring Philip Hyde In Stores Now

At home I have three file safe drawers full of clippings of articles either by or about my father master landscape photographer Philip Hyde. The article files start in 1947 and keep going right past Dad’s passing in 2006, up to the present.

A recent issue of Outdoor Photographer contained a well-written feature about Point Reyes by Sean Arbabi that mentions Dad’s photography there, along with that of Ansel Adams, Brett Weston and other great landscape masters. The piece even mentioned that my father’s photographs helped to make Point Reyes a National Seashore. That was one of the better articles.

A few of the articles in my file safes about Dad are excellent. Some even from the very best magazines are riddled with inaccuracies and misconceptions. The majority are essentially mediocre in that they don’t dig very deep or say much that hasn’t been said before. The majority of writers just don’t make those one or two extra phone calls that turn the article into a multi-source story with more dimension. This is mainly because publishers don’t pay writers much for their submissions any more. With this backdrop, imagine the unfortunate freelance writer, David Best, also a photographer in his own right and known as Panoramaman, writing me and telling me he wants me to review his rough draft for his feature on Philip Hyde for Color Magazine.

Color Magazine is one of the most respected photography magazines today, especially for collectors of fine art photography, along with Black and White Magazine, both published by Ross Periodicals. All along Color Magazine planned to do a feature article on Philip Hyde, but they did not want it to follow too soon after their article on Eliot Porter.

David Best interviewed me over a year ago. I thought he asked excellent questions in the interview. It went very well. Then he sent me his article. I warned him I would beat him up on the details. To my pleasant surprise his draft did a wonderful job of capturing the essence of Dad’s love of nature, while also presenting the story of his landscape photography career in a quality, smooth-flowing narrative that showed a fine dexterity with words. I did beat him up to make sure the facts were straight. I’m not sure he was very happy about it, but I went on to also give a hard time to the friendly, conscientious editor John Lavine to get the facts correct too. He said David Best took it all in stride. Regardless, between David Best’s superlative prose and the layout and photograph selection by John Lavine, in my opinion the final article is one of the best ever written about Dad, which is saying a great deal considering there are 63 years of articles in my file drawers.

Do yourself a favor and go out to the bookstore or newsstand and grab your own copy of this excellent magazine. The current issue with Philip Hyde in it is Issue 12, March 2011. It will be on retail shelves through March, but I wouldn’t wait because every time I have gone to get Color Magazine it has been sold out.

For more on the history of color landscape photography and Philip Hyde’s role in it see also the blog post, “How Color Came To Landscape Photography.” To read how color landscape photography changed after 1990, see the blog post, “Did Velvia Film Change Landscape Photography?“

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Edward Weston’s Landscape Philosophy

November 15th, 2010

Edward Weston And The Revelation Of Nature

Cypress Trunk And Roots, Stonecrop In Bloom, Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, California, 1948 by Philip Hyde. Curators have said this Philip Hyde photograph at Point Lobos shows the influence of Edward Weston. It was made the same year Philip Hyde met Edward Weston. Also, Edward Weston may have been present while it was made on a California School of Fine Arts field trip with Edward Weston and Minor White.

(See the photograph full size Click Here.)

(To view more Philip Hyde vintage black and white prints see information about the Camera Obscura Gallery exhibition in the blog post, “Philip Hyde’s Mountain Landscapes Extended.”

Edward Weston’s photographs exhibit a strong sense of location, of place, of physicality and yet a universality. He showed us the extraordinary in the ordinary. Through details, textures, tactile sensations and the undulating forms of rocks, trees, nudes, ocean waves, vegetables and shells, he brought us the world.

In Edward Weston: On Photography edited by Peter C. Bunnell, Edward Weston explained his philosophy of photographing landscapes, at least at that time in his life:

I am not trying to express myself through photography, impose my personality upon nature (any manifestation of life) but without prejudice nor falsification to become identified with nature, to know things in their very essence, so that what I record is not an interpretation—my idea of what nature should be—but a revelation or a piercing of the smoke-screen artificially cast over life by irrelevant, humanly limited exigencies, into an absolute, impersonal recognition.

Creating Or Allowing

It can of course be argued that all photographers, indeed all artists, impose their personality on their creations. The “art as expression of the artist” argument holds aspects of truth, yet is not the whole story. A landscape photographer, or landscape philosopher, could go to the opposite extreme and say that once he or she reaches the proper state of attunement or union with nature, that he is no longer in the creation process at all. The landscape photographer then becomes a conduit through which creative forces flow. He has let go of attachment to his own ego and is moved, no longer acting as the mover. Some might say he is divinely inspired.

On a practical every-day level, each of us works in a range somewhere between these two opposites. Yet, is it healthier for the photographer to believe he is the one who has made the creation? I know of many photographers who believe they are the reason for their success, when there are thousands of factors and happenstances every day that could tip their career one way or the other. My father, landscape photographer Philip Hyde had his own particular method for keeping his ego in check. He attributed his photographs to God, or Nature, rather than taking the credit himself.

Check Your Ego Before You Go Out To Photograph…?

Odds are good that some manner of narcissism enters into either end of this continuum, while a healthy creative perspective is best maintained somewhere in the balance. Yet when photographing nature, is it not therapeutic to seek the purity of perception that Edward Weston and my father pursued? Some might say it is too idealistic, too filled with romanticism and self-delusions of a nature made enlightenment; but it seems a more attractive notion, in my opinion, than the puffery expressed by photographers who think their work is all about them. Perhaps ultimately either can lead to the other. Eastern philosophers say that one studies the self to eliminate the self.

Edward Weston is now considered by many the father of modern photography. He was an important inspiration to many of the world’s greatest photographers and his importance as a teacher of photography cannot be overstated, yet he only taught photography for a short period of time. Edward Weston had a great impact on Minor White, the lead instructor of Ansel Adams’ photography program at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. For more on Edward Weston’s influence on Minor White see the blog posts, “San Francisco Art Institute Photography History, Part 12,” and “Minor White Letters 1.” Minor White and Ansel Adams invited Edward Weston and other members of Group f.64 such as Dorothea Lange and Imogen Cunningham to guest lecture for Ansel Adams’ new photography department. This time period from 1945 to 1955, when Group f.64 members began to teach straight photography is commonly known as the Golden Decade or Photography’s Golden Era. For 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 6,” “Photography’s Golden Era 7,” “Photography’s Golden Era 8,” and the rest of the posts in the series. For more information and a review of the special exhibition and reception honoring the students and teachers of the Golden Decade Golden see the blog posts, “The Golden Decade: California School of Fine Arts Photography,” and “Over 500 People Attend Golden Decade Opening.”

For more on how to avoid arrogance in the contemporary photographic world see David Taylor’s blog post, “Professionalism Tip for the Day.”

What do you think? What do you observe is the difference in outlook or philosophy between photographers who are arrogant and those who are not?

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Photography’s Golden Era 9

November 11th, 2010

Ansel Adams And The First Days Of Minor White At The California School Of Fine Arts In The Summer Session

Have you ever been in love?
Only then can you photograph.
–Alfred Stieglitz
(Said to Minor White when he first visited Alfred Stieglitz at Gallery 291 in New York.)

(Continued from the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 8“)

Weathered White Bark Pine, Matterhorn Canyon, Yosemite National Park, Sierra Nevada, California, 1950 by Philip hyde. Made the summer after Philip Hyde earned his certificate from the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute.

(See the photograph full screen Click Here.)

Minor White wrote a letter to Alfred Stieglitz on July 7, 1946 about his first few days in class with Ansel Adams in Summer Session at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. “My first class the other night was a delicious experience,” Minor White said. Philip Hyde was also in class for the first time with Ansel Adams that same summer.

“It was interesting to watch and listen to the questions of the ex-servicemen,” Minor White wrote to Alfred Stieglitz. Minor White right away in class began to address students’ questions about Alfred Stieglitz and his methods. “I am pretty darned happy to be able to give them first-hand knowledge of your kind of photography,” he wrote.

Ansel Adams Quickly Approves Minor White’s Teaching

“Within the first week, Minor White was busy teaching Alfred Stieglitz’ ‘equivalents’ as well as the Zone System,” wrote Jeff Gunderson in his essay in The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts. Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, who had originally recommended Minor White for the teaching job received a letter from Ansel Adams that said “Minor is a perfectly swell egg.” “By the third Thursday in the six-week course, Adams took a long weekend in Yosemite,” Jeff Gunderson noted. Ansel Adams “obviously felt comfortable enough to leave the class in White’s hands for a few days after knowing him for less than a week.”

Philip Hyde in a 2004 interview said, “I remember at first I said, ‘Who is this Minor White? He is an interloper. I am interested in what Ansel has to say and do.’ I got over that when I realized that Minor had a lot of things to say too and would be very helpful and interesting.” For more on how Minor White and Philip Hyde influenced each other see the blog post, “Minor White Letters 1.”

Ansel Adams And Minor White Disagree Agreeably

“Minor was a very different person and teacher from me,” Ansel Adams said in his Autobiography. Ansel Adams said that Minor White’s teaching “involved intense ‘verbalization,’ – the talking out of creative intentions, concepts, and directions.”

Minor required maximum quality and conviction of a photographer’s images, all implying superior craft. However, it was the inner message of the photograph that most concerned him; he always wanted to know the thoughts, feelings, and reactions of the artist to his subject and his image. Many were the vigorous yet friendly arguments we endured on this subject over the ensuing years. I remain convinced that the medium must explain itself in its own terms. I agreed with Edward Weston’s frequently spoken Louis Armstrong quote, “Man, if you has to ask, ‘What is it?’ you ain’t never goin’ to know.”… For the viewer, the meaning of the print is his meaning. If I try to impose mine by intruding descriptive titles, I insult the viewer, the print, and myself. I hope to enhance, not destroy, that delicate imaginative quality that should be expected from any form of art…. In retrospect, I feel that Minor was just the right foil for the slightly Calvinistic philosophy of the Group f64 school that my friends and I professed. We stressed the basic craft as it has seldom been accented before or since. Minor taught a high order of craft as well as the introspective attitudes of personal psychology and, later, such Oriental philosophies as Zen. In a sense he added another dimension to the art of photography: perhaps controversial, but convincingly creative.

Philip Hyde Explains Some Ways That Ansel Adams and Minor White Differed

Philip Hyde observed Ansel Adams and Minor White together in the same class from Minor White’s first day at CSFA. Philip Hyde said that Ansel Adams taught much of what he wrote in his books in his Basic Photography Series: The Camera (Book 1), The Negative (Book 2), The Print (Book 3), Natural Light Photography (Book 4) and Artificial Light Photography (Book 5). “Ansel and Minor both devoted time in class to talking broadly about photography,” Philip Hyde said. “They both wanted us to understand the context. They gave us reasons for making photographs too.” Philip Hyde said that seeing was also very important:

Seeing is a process that involves much more than just looking at something. It involves analyzing what you are looking at and thinking about what you are going to do and why you are doing it. When you look at something casually, you are not really seeing it. Meaning is all part of it, but looking hard and letting your eyes go over the subject to see what its nature is and what you want to do with that, how you want to show it. That was part of what Ansel and Minor taught us. We looked at photographs, talked about them and were absorbed in photography. Whatever came across the desk we would look at and analyze.

Minor applied spirituality to his work much more than I was interested in at first anyway. I have always shied away from the word spiritual because it means so many different things to so many different people. I like to find other ways of expressing the idea. Minor and Ansel’s teaching styles were different because Minor was a much more outgoing and outspoken person. He was always surrounded by people and interested in a lot of people. By contrast I don’t think of Ansel as being like that, although Ansel was certainly outgoing and friendly, but he was more formal and Minor was more open. Form in photography was subtle to Ansel. It was not as prominent as with Minor. Minor went to considerable length to emphasize form, whereas Ansel was more interested in conveying his experience through photographs. Minor would see form in things that other people wouldn’t see. Ansel is portrayed as very social with parties at his house, the piano and heads of state visiting, but in his photographs Minor was more outward and social.

Continued in the blog post, “Photography’s Golden Era 10.”

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Posted in Photography History

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