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Inherited Nature: Father And Son Exhibit At The Capitol Arts Gallery

April 25th, 2013

Inherited Nature: Photography by Philip Hyde & David Leland Hyde

(Following is a variation of the press release for the show.)

Graffiti, Street Art, Wall, San Francisco, California, copyright 2010 David Leland Hyde. Nikon D90.

Graffiti, Street Art, Wall, San Francisco, California, copyright 2010 David Leland Hyde. Nikon D90. One of the images on display in “Inherited Nature.”

(See the photograph large, “Graffiti, Street Art, Wall, San Francisco, California.”)

Plumas Arts will exhibit the historically significant photographs by Philip Hyde that helped to make many of our national parks at the Capitol Art Gallery at 525 Main Street in Quincy, California from May 3 through June 1. An opening reception Friday, May 3, 5-7 pm launches the show.  A special presentation by David Leland Hyde, Philip Hyde’s son, will also be held at the Capitol Arts Gallery on Tuesday, May 14, at 6 pm.

During his 60-year full-time large format film photography career Philip Hyde lived with his wife Ardis in Plumas County for 56 years. His photographs that are part of permanent collections and were shown in venues such as the Smithsonian, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, George Eastman House and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, now come home for a rare showing in Plumas County. The Plumas Arts show will be the first local exhibition of its kind since Hyde’s passing in 2006.

Why “Inherited Nature”?

The exhibition, titled “Inherited Nature” will also be unique because it introduces the digital photography of David Leland Hyde, who walked many wilderness miles with his parents and now works to preserve and perpetuate his father’s archives. David Leland Hyde not only inherited his father’s collection, but also his father’s love of nature, art and activism that helped shape his own photography and view of the world. Part of the show naming process included consideration of the double meaning of “nature,” as well as a third double meaning of the phrase which refers to all of us inheriting nature and passing it down as well. One title kicked around was “Nature Passed Down.” The inherited aspect of nature and landscape does not apply only to David Leland Hyde. As far as his photography is concerned, he photographs the landscape because he grew up on the land. However, having lived in cities as well as Plumas County where he was born, David also enjoys architectural, portrait and street photography.

Philip Hyde first made images of the Sierra Nevada at age 16 in 1937 on a Boy Scout backpack in Yosemite National Park with a camera he borrowed from his sister. By 1942 he was making photographs of artistic merit in black and white, and much more rare at the time, in color. In 1945, as he was about to be honorably discharged from the Army Air Corp of World War II, Hyde wrote to Ansel Adams asking for recommendations for photography schools. Adams happened at the time to be finalizing plans for a new photography department at the California School of Fine Art, now the San Francisco Art Institute. The new photography school was the first ever to teach creative photography as a profession. Adams hired Minor White as lead instructor and he brought on teachers who were luminaries and definers of the medium such as Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange and Imogen Cunningham.

Living The Understatement Style

Referred to as “a quiet and humble giant” by prominent landscape photographer QT Luong, Hyde chose to live in the wilderness of Plumas County, sacrificing the greater monetary success of living close to the marketplace of the Bay Area for values more important to him. He set an example of living a simple, close to nature, low-impact lifestyle that becomes more relevant as a model all the time. QT Luong wrote of Philip Hyde:

Living a simple life out of the spotlight, he always felt that his own art was secondary to nature’s beauty and fragility… As an artist, this belief was reflected in his direct style, which appears deceptively descriptive, favoring truthfulness and understatement rather than dramatization.

Philip Hyde spent over one quarter of each year of his career on the back roads, trails, rails, rivers, lakes and ocean coasts of North America making the photographs that influenced a generation of photographers. Today some find it easy to take his compositions for granted, but this mainly happens because they have been emulated countless times. Much of landscape photography today applies principles and techniques developed by Philip Hyde.

Philip Hyde’s Influence On Landscape Photographers

Philip Hyde’s wide sweeping impact started with his role as the primary illustrator of the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series, the series that popularized the large coffee table photography book. The series also contained popular titles by Ansel Adams and color photographer Eliot Porter. Eliot Porter, along with Philip Hyde is credited with introducing color to landscape photography. Well known photographer William Neill said, “I have little doubt that every published nature photographer of my generation has been inspired by Philip’s efforts.” To read William Neill’s tribute to Philip Hyde in full, originally published in Outdoor Photographer magazine, see the guest blog post, “Celebrating Wilderness By William Neill.”

Just as Philip Hyde inspired photographers, his wife Ardis inspired him and traveled as his companion throughout his life and after most would have retired. With Ardis, he built his home near Indian Creek surrounded by woods. Over a two-year period, Philip designed, drew the plans and constructed not only the home with Ardis’ help, but also gathered local river rock for a large fireplace.

Ardis And Philip Hyde At Home

The Hydes first came to Plumas County in 1948 through a chance meeting on a train with Ardis’ friend from college then living at Lake Almanor, who helped Philip Hyde land a summer job in Greenville at the Cheney Mill. Having a young college kid from the city endlessly amused the other workers at the sawmill. One time young Philip even fell into the stinky millpond, which drew great laughter and a ticket home for the day to photograph. Ardis taught kindergarten and first grade for 12 years to help supplement Philip’s photography efforts beginning in 1950 when the Hydes settled in Plumas County.

While living in Plumas County for 56 years, Philip Hyde also actively contributed to the community. He was a founding artist member of Plumas Arts and contributed funds to provide lighting in the gallery. He was also one of the founders of the Plumas County Museum. He hired the architect Zach Stewart, whose famous architectural firm had hired both Hyde and Adams as photographers. Stewart charged the Plumas County Museum much less than usual for his architectural services and as a result the Plumas County Museum had money left over for a small investment fund that has helped it perpetuate for the many years since.

A portion of all proceeds from the exhibition will go directly to the Feather River Land Trust and Plumas Arts, continuing Philip Hyde’s tradition of contribution to the community.

Gallery Hours for the exhibition are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 11am to 5:30pm and Saturdays form 11am to 3pm.  Arrangements may also be made for viewings outside these times by calling Plumas Arts at 530-283-3402.

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David Leland Hyde’s Portfolio Revisions And New Release Photographs

April 5th, 2013

Many New Photographs Added And Others Revised In My Portfolio On PhilipHyde.com

Cypress Trees, Point Arena Odd Fellows Cemetery, Mendocino Pacific Ocean Coast, California, copyright 2012 David Leland Hyde.

Cypress Trees, Point Arena Odd Fellows Cemetery, Mendocino Pacific Ocean Coast, California, copyright 2012 David Leland Hyde.

Besides several images from the blog post, “My 12 ‘Greatest Hits’ Of 2012,” now on display large on PhilipHyde.com, many other newly released DLH images are now on view and a number of previously released photographs are now revised and updated. See the David Leland Hyde Portfolio at the end of 16 Philip Hyde Portfolios on the Philip Hyde Photography website and acquire a fine art archival lightjet chromogenic print out of a limited edition of only 100.

For those who are not familiar with the term chromogenic, the simple definition is that such prints are not inkjet digital prints, but form the image on photographic paper through exposing the paper with light in a photographic process as opposed to using a digital print making ink set to color the paper. For more on digital prints versus chromogenic prints, see the blog posts, “Photography Galleries, Collectors, Appraisers And Digital Prints,” and “Why Photography Galleries, Curators And Collectors Like Limited Editions.”

Mesas, Boulders, San Rafael Swell, Utah, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

Mesas, Boulders, San Rafael Swell, Utah, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

In this blog post, I will share a little about the making of a few of the newly released photographs now in the revised portfolio. In the blog posts, “Northern California Beaches: Misty Sonoma Coast” and “Actor, Photographer, Apple Farmer And 1960s Activist Nicholas King’s Memorial,” I included a few of the landscape photographs from the Sonoma County Pacific Ocean Coast and the Mendocino County Pacific Ocean Coast. Some of these California beaches and rocky cliffs can now be seen in the revised portfolio. One image that did not appear in “My 12 ‘greatest hits’ of 2012,” from my Sonoma and Mendocino Coasts trip, that now appears in my portfolio is “Cypress Trees, Point Arena Odd Fellows Cemetery.” Also, a photograph from 2009 of Utah called, “Mesas, Boulders, San Rafael Swell,” that I posted with my guest blog post on Greg Russell’s Alpenglow Images, “Make Your Own Tripod Tracks,” has itself also been revised and added to the remade portfolio gallery.

Sandstone Boulders Against The Sky, San Rafael Swell, Utah, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

Sandstone Boulders Against The Sky, San Rafael Swell, Utah, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

On the same trip through Utah in 2009, I also made the vertical, “Sandstone Boulders Against The Sky.” This photograph was one of many I made that morning. I left Boulder, Colorado the evening before and spent the night just past the Green River crossing where Interstate 70 climbs up onto the Colorado Plateau. It was a bitter cold winter night with blowing snow and howling gale force winds. In the morning my Ford Van was caked with frozen snow, ice and road grime. I stopped there to sleep only for a few hours in the middle of the night and woke up just as the light began to dawn on the snowy landscape. The desert lands of Southern Utah came to live with new definition and beauty in the fresh snow. In the early morning my hands, nose and other extremities felt like they would surely get frost bite, but I persisted to photograph all morning. By late morning the snow was beginning to melt off in the surprisingly warm sun, a welcome contrast to the cold of the night before. As the snow melted, intricate and visually fascinating snow patterns were left against the red rock sandstone background. Also, the light softened and became more diffuse as high clouds moved back in.  The sandstone boulders appeared in many of my photographs, but this image in particular also captured the sky and the light.

“Dawn, American River From Fair Oaks Bluffs,” I made in 2012 from another Uncle, Clint King’s home the morning of his memorial service. I got up about a half hour before sunrise to be able to catch the sunrise and the mist on the American River. Fair Oaks is a beautiful bedroom suburb town on the outskirts of Sacramento. My Uncle Clint was a self-made man who did very well. I will write a future blog tribute to him as I did for my Uncle Nick King. The tribute will also contain more images of the event and related subjects.

After my Uncle Clint’s memorial celebration in November 2012, I drove to Livermore to see the Golden Decade Legacy Show at Figurehead Gallery that included my father’s vintage and authorized archival prints, Ansel Adams prints, Minor White prints and the black and white photography of other students of theirs from the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. After viewing the exhibition, I attempted to photograph at the Livermore Gravel Pits as Dad did in 1949. However, due to liability, they would only let me photograph on a day where the office foreman could accompany me. I tried to sneak some photos, but an upper level manager drove over and yelled obscenities at me.

Manly Beacon, Badlands And Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park, Mojave Desert, California, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

Manly Beacon, Badlands And Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park, Mojave Desert, California, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

I drove from there down to photograph some architecture of the restored old homes in downtown Pleasanton, California. However, still craving more gritty fare, I also stopped under the freeway to photograph graffiti and street art. On the way home through Stockton, I also exited in downtown there, but did not find much I wanted to photograph until I found my way to the Deep Water Port of Stockton. Again, I ran into management that would not allow photographs without contacting the corporate office and coming back another day. One of the homeland security guards told me how to drive around to the other side of the San Joaquin River and photograph the Port of Stockton from a distance. This is how I made the photograph, “Port of Stockton” that also appears in the updated portfolio.

In 2009 in Death Valley National Park, I first came across the phenomena of photographers overrunning an iconic landscape. I descended into Death Valley during the evening magic hour, made some images near Panamint Springs and a few other stops on the way down to Stovepipe Wells and the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes. I hit the sand running in the Twilight hour. The dunes were heavily beaten with footprints, as I suppose there had not been any windstorms recently. Still, I managed to make a number of good images including some of the classic tallest dune there at Mesquite Flats with some Amargosa Range mountains in the background. I was satisfied, short on time and the campground and all lodging was full. I moved on to the Furnace Creek area and parked for the night in my Van in the hotel parking lot.

Two Horses With Live Oak, "Inveration," Sierra Foothills Near Dunlap, California, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

Two Horses With Live Oak, “Inveration,” Sierra Foothills Near Dunlap, California, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

The next morning I woke up in the dark and headed out to Zabriski Point. I was amazed to find that even an hour before sunrise, the parking lot already had around 10 vehicles in it. I took the paved road width trail up to Zabriski Point proper and found close to a dozen photographers already set up waiting for the sun to come up. I stopped briefly in the paved stone-encircled corral where more cattle were gathering by the minute to photograph the sunrise cliché.

I walked back toward the parking lot, but saw a small dirt trail taking off for the ridge that angled toward Manly Beacon. I took this trail and the crowd of gathering photographers soon faded into the distance. I followed the dirt trail along the ridge top marveling at the vast open space of the Badlands and how not one photographer could be seen in the entire Death Valley landscape, except in the small confines of one paved trail overlook. I made a few photographs of Manly Beacon, an icon, by any definition, though captured from an angle that only a few take the time to see because it requires a little extra walking. The irony is that the sunrise all those other photographers were waiting for never happened. The sun never came up and never came out. it remained cloudy, as you can see in my photograph. I thought about how my Dad would most probably have hiked way down into the Badlands with his large format view camera, miles from the parking lot, lost amidst the bare earth of the erosion landforms. I remembered being teased in school for being different. At that moment  in the Death Valley landscape, all I felt was gratitude for my upbringing. My parents taught me not only to think “outside the box,” but more importantly to live outside the box… and as Robert Frost said, “That has made all the difference.”

Urban Railroad Ultra Fine, Reno, Nevada, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

Urban Railroad Ultra Fine, Reno, Nevada, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

On that note I introduce “Two Horses With Live Oak, ‘Inveration,’ Sierra Foothills Near Dunlap, California,” and “Urban Railroad, Ultra Fine, Reno, Nevada.” These two 2009 photographs are what I call Photoshop experimental photography art. “Inveration” is a made up word to describe my Photoshop process for that image.

Please share: what do you think of these experiments and the other images? Do you live outside the box and away from the herd?

 

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Why Photography Galleries, Curators And Collectors Like Limited Editions

March 12th, 2013

Important Announcement: Philip Hyde Authorized Archival Prints, Largest Sizes Converted To Limited Editions

Misty Morning, Indian Creek, Northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, 1983 by Philip Hyde. The original color transparency went missing and this image has not been printed or published for over 20 years. With the digital age it can again be printed. West Coast Imaging produced the new file from a scan by their Creo CCD Flatbed Scanner of a Philip Hyde original dye transfer print.

Misty Morning, Indian Creek, Northern Sierra Nevada, California, 1983 by Philip Hyde. Because the original color transparency was missing, this image has not been printed or published for over 25 years. With the digital age it can again be printed. West Coast Imaging produced the new file from a scan by their Creo CCD Flatbed Scanner of a Philip Hyde original dye transfer print. This is another Philip Hyde photograph that is close to selling 10 prints, at which point it will go up in value $100 in all sizes. Because this photograph is not available as a 32X40 print, the limited edition is only available in the 24X30 size.

(See the photograph large: “Misty Morning, Indian Creek, Northern Sierra Nevada, California.”)

After much research and deliberation, I have decided to take the advice of many photographers, photography gallery owners, collectors, museum curators, archive collection managers, appraisers, connoisseurs, critics and nearly every other established expert in the art of photography that I have spoken with: to change the largest Philip Hyde authorized archival lightjet or digital prints to limited editions of 50.

That’s right, you read correctly, from now on the two largest sizes, 24X30 and 32X40 Philip Hyde archival lightjet or digital prints will be offered in limited editions of only 50 prints from either size of each image. Not 50 24X30’s plus 50 32X40’s, but 50 prints total in either size. The remaining Philip Hyde archival print sizes: 8X10, 11X14, 16X20 and 20X24 will still be offered in an open numbered edition called the Philip Hyde authorized “Special Edition.”

In my research I found that only photographers were against limited editions and only a minority of photographers at that. One talented and prominent photographer and writer, who I agree with on many other subjects, Guy Tal, has even gone so far as to suggest that limited edition prints are unethical because he believes they manipulate the market, creating a false scarcity and an “inflated value.” His reasoning is that “manufacturing scarcity” through limiting editions goes against the goals of artists “to inspire, to share, to make accessible, to celebrate and other noble causes often associated with photography of natural things.” He proposes that “artificial scarcity” is not the same as “real scarcity.” If you read his blog post, “The Ethics of Limited Editions,” you may understand why he looks at it this way. The comments on his blog post are many and diverse. In my observation, some photographers who dislike limited editions look at it mainly from their own perspective and not that of the collector or even casual print buyer. For primarily this reason, these photographers overlook the real benefits of limited editions.

Who Brought Limited Editions To Landscape Photography?

Is it not ironic then, that it was Ansel Adams and later Galen Rowell, who did the most to popularize both landscape photography and limited editions in the genre? Some landscape photographers who do not like limited editions claim that Ansel Adams did not produce limited edition. This may be true of the prints he made himself, but his Special Edition prints made in his darkroom by an assistant and other editions were limited. Some early well-known landscape photographers also invented the now ethically questionable practice of size specific limited editions. They would offer 16X20 prints of a certain image as a limited edition of say 200. Once the edition of 200 sold out, they would then offer a limited edition of 15X18 prints of the same image. Fear and mistrust of these types of limited editions are what caused collectors to be wary of limited editions of digital prints when they were first introduced. When digital prints originally began to appear, Photography galleries and collectors believed that it was easier to make digital prints than traditional color or black and white prints. They feared that photographers would break their own self-imposed edition limits, or work around the limits by issuing different sizes or implementing some other ploy.

Certainly limited editions of 250, 500 or more than 1,000 are mirages. Print runs of this size only create the perception and carry the name of “limited editions.” They are not truly limited because few nature or landscape photographers will ever sell that many of one image out of their many prints offered.

What Photography Gallery Owners And Collectors Like

I remember a conversation I had with Terry Etherton, an esteemed photography dealer and owner of the Etherton Gallery in Tucson, Arizona. I asked his opinion whether I ought to offer my father’s photographer authorized archival digital prints in limited editions or not. I explained that the current numbered Special Edition was not a limited edition, but would be limited by its pricing structure. That is, each time 10 prints sell in each image, that image goes up $100 in all sizes. For example, we have already sold more than 10 prints of “Virginia Creeper, Northern Sierra.” It is priced at $275 for an 8X10, $425 for 11X14, $575 for 16X20 and so on rather than the regular pricing of the rest of Dad’s photographs of $175 for 8X10, $325 for 11X14, $475 for 16X20, etc. After “Virginia Creeper” has sold 100 prints, the 8X10s will sell for $1175, the 11X14s will sell for $1325, the 16X20s will be $1475 and so on. Terry Etherton said that was OK, but limited editions would be simpler. I said that if I did switch to limited editions, I would probably limit them to perhaps 75, 100 or even as much as 200. He said, “I was thinking maybe 25 or 50. Collectors want something rare.” Most of the other photography galleries whose owners I talked to concurred with Mr. Etherton.

Collectors not only like, but purposely seek out vintage prints and even modern photographs that are printed in limited editions or are rare for some other reason. Photography galleries, museum curators and archivists like limited editions too. Why? Very simply, because whenever there is less of anything valuable, the less of it there is, the more valuable it becomes. This is not “manufactured” or “artificial” and even if it were, whenever there is less quantity, regardless of the reason or the cause, there is more value. Collectors want to have the satisfaction of knowing that what they have is something unique or nearly unique. They want to pay more to obtain art that they know will not be mass-produced. It is no more complicated or psychologically involved than that.

Black And White Magazine On Digital Print Values

Lorraine Anne Davis MA, MFA, a fine art photography appraiser since 1984 and columnist for Black and White Magazine, has managed, curated or consulted with many of the world’s most significant photography collections including the Paul Strand Archive. She wrote an article in the April 2009, Issue 66 of Black and White Magazine titled, “Concerning Digital Reprints.” Her article explained that digital prints are becoming more accepted and collectible, but that “posthumous” digital reprints of an artist who mainly printed with other processes are ubiquitous, but sometimes questionable in appraisal value. Indeed, according to Davis, the intent of the artist or the print maker is what determines value. For more about her article see the Fine Art Photography Collectors Resource Blog post called, “Photography Galleries, Collectors, Appraisers And Digital Prints.”

Having learned to print from Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White, my father produced his own fine art gelatin silver prints, dye transfer prints from color film and later Cibachrome color prints. He had Wally McGalliard in Los Angeles print all of his large exhibition prints using a C-print process. In 1998, master landscape photographer Carr Clifton restored two of Dad’s photographs. From then on Dad authorized Carr Clifton to print for him. Wally McGalliard retired around the same time and Carr Clifton’s new archival digital prints became the preferred printing process for Philip Hyde Photography. When Dad was making his own prints from color film, he only made 2-8 prints of each image. Thus, I no longer have many prints left of many of his most well known photographs. We expanded the line of digital prints offered mainly to Dad’s top images that have nearly or completely sold out and those that have been damaged in some way. Peter Fetterman, the number one photography dealer in Southern California, said producing any digital prints at all might confuse the market, but I imagine “the market” would rather be confused than not able to obtain any of Dad’s best photographs at all.

Are All Digital Prints Equal?

These archival lightjet or digital prints are very different from most digital prints. First of all they are made from high resolution Tango drum scans of large format 4X5, 5X7 or 8X10 color film. The resulting raw file is 800 MG to 6 Gigs in size and contains far more detail and a much wider range and depth of color than any digital camera capture today. A good analogy is why music lovers like vinyl LP records better than CDs. Analog sound is fuller, richer, more melodious and less metallic sounding because the sound curve is smooth, containing a continuous breakdown of all the sound, whereas the digital sound curve, when magnified, is a stairstep of sound with little pieces of the sound missing all along the “curve.” Tango drum Scans of large format original color film transparencies contain a much smoother color curve and much more of the colors in the continuum. Because of this, at first a drum scan comes out appearing dull in color, also due to adjusting the settings to obtain as much detail from the highlights and shadows as possible. The huge raw file must then be “developed” or “post-processed” in Photoshop by a seasoned restoration expert to most effectively match the way my father printed the image.

Carr Clifton’s expert Photoshop work is expensive and time consuming for both of us as we print a proof, change the digital file, print another proof and change the digital image again. Also, since many of Dad’s original color film transparencies and black and white film negatives are beaten up with scratches, pock marks, fading and all sorts of other damage due to age and being sent out to publishers so often, a great deal of restoration and cleanup work is necessary as each image gets printed larger and larger. The archival digital prints Carr Clifton and I have made are not considered posthumous prints because Dad authorized them eight years before his death in 2006 and two years before he lost his eyesight in 2000. Also, they are not technically even digital prints any more at all because they are now printed on a lightjet printer. The lightjet printing process does not produce the image on the paper with 11 inks the way the fine art digital printing process does, the lightjet process is actually a chromogenic or full color spectrum, photographic process whereby the paper is exposed with light much like the old darkroom printing processes. This produces a richer, even more full-spectrum color emulsion with better definition and contrast, even more like an analog vintage print. Lightjet prints are also more environmentally friendly not using toxic inks and wasting less paper and ink due to fewer printing mistakes. Some tests claim inkjet digital prints will outlast lightjet prints, but some tests claim lightjet prints will outlast digital prints. Either way, lightjet prints on Fuji Crystal Archive paper when placed side-by-side with digital prints win hands down in their aesthetic appeal, print consistency and print quality.

What A Professional Appraiser, Some Photography Dealers And A Few Museum Curators Said

I contacted Lorraine Anne Davis in December 2009 and wrote that I enjoyed her informative article in Black and White Magazine. I also explained what Carr Clifton and I were doing and how we had enjoyed compliments from top photography galleries and major museums including the Oakland Museum and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, whose head photography curators had seen the archival digital prints. I told her that I planned at some point to write about the subject and would she offer her expert opinion on what we were doing, even without seeing the prints. I explained that I wished to overcome the stigma sometimes attached to heirs making prints and be sure to bring out the archival digital prints in such a way that they would be accepted, respected, collected and go up in value.

I quote her reply in full:

I am afraid I am too busy to answer in depth. Just limit the editions and it doesn’t matter what the process is. Not any more – but collectors want to think what they have is “rare” –

You can make large editions of small prints and very limited of larger prints –

Blind stamp or holograph to protect originality –

A certificate or sticker of authenticity can be reproduced by anyone – certificates of authenticity are often issued with fakes – appraisers don’t even consider them, they are the easiest things to fake. It’s somewhat of a joke, actually – and It isn’t necessary of you keep track of the editions.

Unless your father’s work starts selling for over 100,000 per print, no one is going to make fakes –

Man Ray, Peter Beard, Hine and 19th C dags have some fakes – but Hine and Man Ray printers had the negs –and were selling very high

Sorry to be so brief

All my articles will be posted on my web site in the next weeks -

Happy Holidays – Lorraine

In my reply I of course thanked her and said, “This is quite a bit of information actually and very generous of you to advise.” Based on her guidance and much other research and conversations with people like Richard Gadd, previous Director of the Monterey Museum of Art, currently Director of the Weston Gallery in Carmel; Sandra S. Phillips, Senior Curator of Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Michael and Jeanne Adams of the Ansel Adams Gallery; Hal Gould and Loretta Young-Gautier of Camera Obscura Gallery in Denver; Andrew Smith and John Boland of Santa Fe; Scott Nichols and Susan Friedwald of San Francisco; Stefan Kirkeby of Smith Andersen North in San Anselmo, California; Robert Yellowlees and Tony Casadonte of Lumiere Gallery and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; Drew Johnson Curator of Photography and Visual Culture at the Oakland Museum and many others, I have decided to make the changes mentioned above to the two largest sizes of my father’s archival lightjet and digital prints. Dad’s 24X30 and 32X40 archival lightjet and digital prints will from now on be produced in limited editions of 50 prints per image.

The Results And Bottom Line

For the remainder of this year of 2013 or whenever one image sells more than five prints, these limited edition prints from color film originals will be PRICED THE SAME AS THEY ARE NOW! That is, prints in LIMITED EDITIONS of only 50 will remain the same price until they either sell five prints or until December 31, 2013. After that they will go up an average of $200 in each size (see the chart below for details.) This represents a 15 percent savings.

Prices Now            Unmatted/Unframed                      Matted                         Matted & Framed

24X30                                      925                                    1050                                    1175

32X40                                    1175                                    1325                                    1475

 

Prices After            Unmatted/Unframed                     Matted                         Matted & Framed

24X30                                    1100                                    1225                                    1350

32X40                                    1300                                    1450                                    1600

For more information on Philip Hyde archival lightjet and digital prints from color film see: “About Fuji Crystal Archive Chromogenic Fine Art Prints,” as well as the blog post mentioned above called, “Photography Galleries, Collectors, Appraisers And Digital Prints.”

What do you think? Are we on the right track? Would it be wise to keep the editions the same as they are now? Print a completely open edition with no numbering? Produce the entire line of prints as limited editions?

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Figurehead Gallery Group Show: The Legacy of Ansel Adams & Minor White

October 26th, 2012

Golden Decade

Photographers

The Legacy Of Ansel Adams And Minor White

Reception:  Sunday, November 4, 2012, 1-4 pm

Exhibit:  November 1-December 1, 2012

EXTENDED TO DECEMBER 22, 2012

Buckskin Gulch, Paria River Canyon, Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness, Utah, copyright 1969 Philip Hyde. Baby Deardorff 4X5 large format view camera. Buckskin Gulch is the featured image on the announcement for The Legacy of Ansel Adams and Minor White show.

Photographs by Ansel Adams, Minor White, Philip Hyde, Bill Heick, Charles Wong, David Johnson, Benjamen Chinn, Ira Latour, Zoe Brown, John Upton, Gerald Ratto, Stan Zrnich, Pat Harris, Don Whyte, Lee Blodget, Fred Hill, Helen Howell, Harold Zegart, Cameron Macauley, Stephen Goldstine, Bob Hollingsworth, Al Richter and Leonard Zielaskewitz.

The Figurehead Gallery in Downtown Livermore is pleased to present an exhibit of photographs of the first students of the Photography Department at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. Founded by Ansel Adams, directed by Minor White, and staffed by such luminaries as Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Lisette Model, and Edward Weston, the first photography department in the US to teach creative photography as a full-time profession began in 1945 at the California School of Fine Art, now the San Francisco Art Institute. 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. Along with approximately 100 former student’s vintage and modern photographic prints, also on view will be several vintage prints by Ansel Adams on loan from his granddaughter, Sylvia Desin.

Several of the photographers, now in their 80′s and 90′s, will be in attendance as well as many family members of the photographers who have passed away. David Leland Hyde will include his father Philip Hyde’s vintage and more recent color photographs in the exhibition. Ken Ball and Victoria Whyte Ball, daughter of Philip Hyde’s classmate Don Whyte, opened the Figurehead Gallery to honor her father and the other photographers of the Golden Decade and to showcase local art from the East Bay Area.
The Figurehead Gallery
Old Theater Mall
2222 2nd Street, Suites 20 & 21
Livermore, CA 94550
925•337•1799
www.figureheadgallery.com

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Sierra Club Books: Exhibit Format Series 2

October 4th, 2012

Sierra Club Books: Exhibit Format Series

Part Two: The Making of This Is The American Earth

(Continued from the blog post, “Sierra Club Books: Exhibit Format Series 1.”)

Aspens, East Side of the Sierra Nevada off the Tioga Road near Yosemite National Park, California, copyright 1949 by Philip Hyde. A close variation on the photograph of Philip Hyde’s that appears in “This Is the American Earth.” Made with an 8X10 Deardorff large format view camera.

“The Exhibit Format Series put the Sierra Club on the map,” Philip Hyde said in a 2004 interview. The Sierra Club Foundation, founded by David Brower, had the central purpose of operating the Sierra Club publishing program that published all Sierra Club Books and the Exhibit Format Series as it’s mainstay. For more on David Brower see the blog post, “David Brower: Photographer And Environmentalist 1.” The Sierra Club Books’ Exhibit Format Series not only popularized the coffee table photography book, but brought an awareness of land conservation, wilderness preservation and environmental ethics into the national and eventually worldwide limelight.

The oversize photography books in the Exhibit Format Series spearheaded conservation campaigns to create Redwood National Park, North Cascades National Park, to save the Grand Canyon from two dams, to expand Canyonlands and many others causes. Photographer Ansel Adams, Museum Curator, Writer and Art Critic Nancy Newhall and Sierra Club Executive Director David Brower invented the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series.

Life Magazine Photographer, Joe Munroe, interviewed David Brower in 1967 for Infinity, the magazine of the American Society of Media Photographers or ASMP, regarding the new Exhibit Format Series. Joe Munroe asked David Brower, “You’ve called the Sierra Club’s Exhibit Format Series ‘Books with a bias.’ What is the central bias behind these books?”

David Brower answered:

We make it perfectly clear that we like this wild country we’re portraying in our books. We want it saved and we don’t want it paved, or logged, or dammed, or sprayed, or polluted. Our point is that there’s only 5 or 10 percent of the country left in its un-messed-up wildness. If our economy cannot operate on the 90 or 95 percent that has already been changed, that other 5 or 10 percent won’t save it; so our big effort must be in doing better with the land we’re already on. We say let’s pretend this 5 or 10 percent just doesn’t exist, so we can save it for itself for whatever answers there are to questions we haven’t learned how to ask yet. This has got to last for all the generations we expect to be aboard this planet. We’d like to have some of the wild spots left and we’ve been trying to stress this in several ways, one of which is through these books with an extra measure of physical size, the best of reproduction quality, and photographic and literary excellence.

This is the American Earth, the first book in the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series, was a perfect example of just these attributes. This Is The American Earth offered text by Nancy Newhall and photographs primarily by Ansel Adams joined by some of his photographer friends such as Ray Atkeson, Werner Bischoff, Wynn Bullock, Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Garnett, Philip Hyde, Pirkle Jones, Eliot Porter, Edward Weston, Minor White, Cedric Wright and others. All in black and white, the book has both literary and visual eloquence unparalleled in books containing photographs.

The front flap of the Sierra Club Centennial edition published in 1992 said:

First published to acclaim in 1960, This Is The American Earth launched the Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series, creating a revolution in publishing and in conservation action and attitudes. “This Is The American Earth is one of the great statements in the history of conservation,” proclaimed Justice William O. Douglas… Called “terrifying and beautiful” by the New York Times, This Is The American Earth presents eighty-five powerful black and white photographs—fourty-four by Ansel Adams and others by such eminent American photographers as Eliot Porter, Philip Hyde, Edward Weston and Margaret Bourke-White. Accompanying the images is a luminous text in blank verse by Nancy Newhall. Reprinted in rich duotones from new prints supplied by the Ansel Adams Trust, the pictures exhibit the stark contrast between those spaces forever altered by the forces of development and those left unscarred by human presence. As Nancy Newhall explores the intricate threads that unite the earth as an ever-shifting whole, and Adams exults in Yosemite’s rocky peaks, and Porter reveres a single tern in flight, William Garnett despairs at waves of smog and frantic mazes of tract housing that forsake all of nature’s singularity. The images, so bold in their divergence, are an eloquent call for the preservation of wilderness. This Is The American Earth compels us to ask what is the value of solitude, the cost of freedom, the legacy of our ingenuity—and the peril of our unwavering march from nature.

Ansel Adams first conceived This Is The American Earth as an exhibit of photographs, in response to the Natioal Park Service suggestion that something more functional be done with the Joseph LeConte memorial building in Yosemite Valley.  Ansel Adams asked Nancy Newhall to bring in her skill with exhibits and text she gained as curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The exhibition that opened simultaneously at the LeConte Memorial in Yosemite Valley and at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, gained a world-wide audience through the Smithsonian Institute, while a number of prominent publishers and foundations helped the show become a book. The idea of the project was to educate the public about conservation. Ansel Adams said in brainstorming sessions with his wife Virginia Adams and Nancy Newhall later quoted in Modern Photography Magazine:

What about a show on the whole of conservation?… Clear up the confusion in people’s minds, show them the issues at stake, and the dangers… Show the importance of the spiritual values as well as the material ones by making the most beautiful exhibition yet… A lot of people think Conservationists are a bunch of long-haired cranks and wild-eyed mystics. It’s about time they were given a chance to understand the broad principles and the full scope for which we’re fighting…

Ansel Adams raised the money to mount the exhibition himself. Nancy Newhall reviewed thousands of photographs, designed the overall concept and layout of the show and wrote the text. Beaumont and Christi Newhall’s new introduction to the Sierra Club Centennial edition described how the printing and organization of the show came together:

Six photographers made their own prints [including Philip Hyde] for the show, and Ansel Adams, with the help of his assistant Pirkle Jones, made the rest from the photographer’s own negatives. These images were attached to fourteen panels, each seven by four feet. Some of the photographs were mounted with spacers, making them stand out from the panels, and giving a certain visual liveliness to the show. Also displayed were natural objects and geological specimens such as butterflies, mushrooms coral, crystals, and shells, as well as small Egyptian and Greek artifacts. These objects added color, variety, a sense of life, and a sense of immediacy… Labels made from Nancy Newhall’s text were placed together with the photographs where they seemed appropriate, giving the exhibition an even broader scope. Immediately, the show received an overwhelming enthusiastic response.

An article in the November 1955 issue of Modern Photography Magazine stated:

This Is the American Earth is one of the most beautiful and remarkable photographic exhibitions ever put together… Various organizations have proposed to circulate it in reproduction to every community, to make it into a movie for TV and ordinary theater showings, to publish it as a book for distribution in this country and throughout the world. Why all the excitement? There are two answers, one is the theme of the show, the other its execution. The theme stresses the need, the history, the purpose of the conservation of America’s resources. The execution includes the display of some of the most penetrating and beautiful photographs ever made…

Nancy Newhall completely revised the text as the exhibition became a book, “to reflect new thinking and expansion of the original ideas.” Beaumont and Christi Newhall’s introduction explained:

The exhibit had focused on conservation and the “national park idea.” The theme of the book is avowedly ecological and environmental. It embraces an understanding of the interrelation of all resources including man, and the need for reverence and preservation of these resources. The impassioned, poetic text also deals with the tragic effects of man’s greed and ignorance throughout history upon this planet. The book was an instant success. It was chosen as one of the forty-six “Notable Books”  of 1960 by the nation’s librarians, and was selected Best Book of the Year by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. It was reviewed in newspapers and periodicals throughout the country, often accompanied by photographs from the book and large sections of the text.

In Ansel Adams’ last living interview by Art News in 1984, he said, “…It boils down to the fact that the world is in a state of potential destruction. There’s no use worrying about anything else.”

(Continued in the blog post, “Sierra Club Books: Exhibit Format Series 3.”)

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Minor White-Philip Hyde Letters 3

April 26th, 2012

Minor White Letters To Philip Hyde 3

Stick To One Style. Scope Is Fatal To Recognition…

Do you agree or disagree?

(Continued from the blog post, “Minor White-Philip Hyde Letters 2.”)

Note On Minor White’s Letters And The San Francisco Art Institute

Late Sun Near Point Pedro, Pacific Ocean, California, copyright 1948 by Philip Hyde. Scan of original hand made vintage black and white print. Photograph made on a California School of Fine Arts field trip.

Philip Hyde first met Minor White in the 1946 Photography Summer Session taught by Ansel Adams at the renowned California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. Ansel Adams soon after made Minor White lead instructor of the new photography program, which was the first to train photographers for a non-commercial creative photography full-time profession. Philip Hyde enrolled in the full time day student photography course taught by Minor White in 1947 and earned his certificate of completion in the Spring of 1950. His group was the second full-time class to go through the school. The letter correspondence between Philip Hyde and Minor White began shortly after in May 1950. The letters of Minor White to Philip Hyde are clearly responses to letters from Philip Hyde to Minor White. However, the first three letters from Philip Hyde to Minor White are missing. For more related background on Minor White, Alfred Stieglitz, Philip Hyde, Ansel Adams and other points in the history of photography see the blog post, “Minor White–Philip Hyde Letters.”

Letter From Minor White To Philip Hyde

(From Philip Hyde’s correspondence file with Minor White. Used with acknowledgement from the Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey, copyright by the Trustees of Princeton University.)

“Make A Name For Yourself Faster, And Money Faster By Sticking To One Style Until You Catch On With The Public. Scope… Is Fatal To Recognition…”

30 Nov 1950

Dear Phil,

Say I want to apologize for being so remote the other morning. I was under the impression that you were returning that afternoon and could spend more time to talk and look at pictures. Sorry as hell.

Must say that your pictures looked better than ever. Clean as Ansel’s and a slant of your own seeing. Was amused at Pete’s choices—as I have been several times lately when the opportunity came up for him to pick from other people’s work. Still the same seeing as his Filmore project—think the years out of photography will be better for him than anything else.

The Albert Bender Grants-In-Aid foundation is including photography this year. Ansel Adams is chairman of the committee and I am serving on it also—so is Imogen Cunningham. Ansel is so confident that you will hit the Guggenheim that he would just as soon not consider any application you might make for the Bender. I am still seeing to it that you get an application—and leave the rest up to you. It’s 1200 bucks for creative photography or some project that can include creative photography.

When I get in a philosophical mood (which at the moment I am as far from as possible—printing all day) wonder if you will continue the approach to photography you now have for how many years. You are starting a career dead center in the same tradition Ansel stands for. Starting as positively few of my students have done. You earned the position, I can add happily. If I just can curb my patience, it will be heartening to see how you grow. And in a way I envy your present mastery of the medium, it is full and fulfilling, and your pictures show you are creating freely. Pursue the vein as long as it lasts. The tradition you are following is a fertile one. You can make a name for yourself faster, and money faster by sticking to one style until you catch on with the public. Scope, that I am always chasing, is fatal to recognition I gather. At least so I am told. But that is hardly anything to keep me from photographing everything I can in as appropriate a manor as I can manage, NO?

Cheerio, old bean, best regards to ‘wife and kids.’ Sorry I am in no mood to rave on. I probably ought to frame the folded fine prints. One of them is only a hair off success.

Minor [Hand written signature]

(Emphasis on the above bold sentence added by Landscape Photography Blogger.)

(Continued in the blog post, “Minor White-Philip Hyde Letters 4.”)

Do you agree that scope is fatal to recognition? Does this still apply today? Please share your thoughts…

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How Color Came To Landscape Photography

April 19th, 2012

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

Originally posted August 16, 2010

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San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 14

February 16th, 2012

Space Analysis Lecture By Minor White

Philip Hyde’s 1947 Class Notes

California School Of Fine Arts, Now The San Francisco Art Institute

Photography Program Founded By Ansel Adams, Minor White Lead Instructor

(Continued from the blog post, “San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 13.”)

(View the photograph large: “Ship ‘China Victory,’ Fishing Boats, San Francisco Waterfront.”)

Ship "China Victory" And Fishing Boats, San Francisco Waterfront, San Francisco Bay, California, copyright 1948 by Philip Hyde. The fishing boat hulls on the left are an example of planes parallel to the focal plane.

Landscape Photography Blogger Note:

Perhaps one of the most renowned, yet mysterious concepts that Minor White taught was Space Analysis. Few of Minor White’s students gave any indication that they understood the idea completely. Interviews with Philip Hyde, William Heick, Ben Chinn, Stan Zrnich, David Johnson and others bear this out. Little has been written or described anywhere regarding the definition of Minor White’s Space Analysis. Now, here, published for the first time ever are Philip Hyde’s class notes from August 1947 covering Minor White’s lecture on Space Analysis.

Space Analysis Lecture By Minor White

August 26, 1947

Philip Hyde’s Class Notes

Introduction

  • Composition in the Graphic Arts consists of organization and construction; as contrasted with photography. Composition in photography consists of analysis and organization of existing elements.
  • In photography, the frame of the viewfinder or ground glass isolates or selects elements desired.
  • Closeness –> Restraint;  Distance –> Freedom
  • Implication of horizontal plane (as viewed from above) from Vertical Plane is part of Space Analysis. Arises from conventions, knowledge and due to the third dimensional effect inherent in a photograph.

The subject can dictate the organization of the rest of the photograph and the rest of the photograph should conform to the subject.

Space-Depth Concept

  1. Planes (or a plane) which are parallel to the focal plane
    1. Perhaps the simplest type of subject is one single plane photographed. For example: a wall.
    2. Parallel planes in depth—a series of objects without an intervening horizontal plane. For example: a series of stage sets. Sometimes called banding.
    3. Horizontal plane with lines of demarcation. For example: waves on the ocean photographed from a high cliff.
    4. Vertical lines open the space up a little more. For example: a series of planes in depth with vertical edges.
  2. Planes at an angle to the focal plane.
    1. Diagonal or Receding Planes. For example: a road going away from the camera.

Negative Space

The space between objects or around objects has existence and weight. This volume or space is exceptionally important in photography, as is the control of this space, as effected by the tone of respective objects, lighting of objects and placement of the horizontal plane—in tonal values. For example: Screens are placed near each other; the space between may be expanded or contracted by the control above.

(Continued in the blog post, “San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 15.”)

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San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 13

December 5th, 2011

Summer School 1946 With Ansel Adams

Description And Outline

(Continued from the blog post, “San Francisco Art Institute Photography History, Part 12.”)

Cumulus Clouds Over Indian Valley, Northern Sierra Nevada, copyright 1948 Philip Hyde.

Summer School, as Ansel Adams referred to it, first started in 1946. The course ran for six weeks of intensive instruction based on the regular day school in photography at the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute. Minor White first taught with Ansel Adams in the Summer of 1946 with students including Philip Hyde, Benjamen Chinn, William Heick, Ira Latour, Pirkle Jones, Ruth-Marion Baruch, Don Whyte, Pat Harris, David Johnson, John Rogers, Al Richter, Bob Hollingsworth, Walter Stoy, Helen Howell and others.

In preliminary descriptions of the course for the CSFA School Board, Ansel Adams suggested: “It should be considered as part of the full day school year rather than… supplementary…” The Summer Session became what Ansel Adams described as “a ‘screening course’ for the main student body of the day school.”

Ansel Adams further described the proposed course:

It should be made very intensive and should reveal within its six weeks span the abilities – or lack of them – of the students. Only those should be admitted who have definite intention to take at least the first year of the main school sessions. The exact topics to be considered in the summer school will be basic but of course should not be too extensive. The first summer school period in 1946 will enable us to clear up various ‘bugs’ in the studio, lab, and general operation. The summer school of 1947 should be designed, I believe, as a buffer course to enable the regular day students to perfect their work and to round out missing or weak aspects of their knowledge.

Outline Of Ansel Adams’ Summer Session 1946

Department of Photography

California School of Fine Arts

Day School:

Week 1

Period:

1:            Organization, outline of study and general assignments, etc.

2:            Functions of the Camera and Lens

3:            Demonstration of above

4:            Photographic Visualization

5:            Demonstration

6:            Basic Photographic Esthetics

Week 2

Period:

1:            Resume of Photographic History and Esthetics

2:            Philosophy of Exposure and Development of the Negative

3:            Demonstration Including Darkroom Mechanics

4:            Demonstration Including Orthochromatics

5:            Problem: demonstration-Visualization through execution

6:            General Discussion

Week 3

Period:

1:            Presentation of a photographic problem  (1st assignment)

2:            Execution of the problem – exposure and development of the negative

3:            Printing

4:            Demonstration

5:            Printing of the negatives of the above problem

6:            Discussion and criticism of problem-assignment results

Week 4

Period:

1:            Elements of photographic Composition

2:            Presentation of 2nd Photographic Problem (2nd assignment)

3:            Field or Studio work under direction

4:            Printing under direction

5:            Toning of prints

6:            Discussion and criticism of second assignment

Week 5

Period:

1:            Expressive fields of photography

2:            Presentation of the 3rd Photographic Problem (assignment)

3:            Field or Studio work under direction

4:            Mounting and spotting of prints (presentation)

5:            Philosophy of Artificial light in photography

6:            General Discussion and criticism of assignment 3

Week 6

Period:

1:            Assignment using artificial light and analysis (4th assignment)

2:            Assignment: Three interpretations of the same subject (5th assignment)

3:            Minor darkroom techniques (reduction, intensification, bleaching, etc.)

4:            Survey of contemporary directions in photography, Critical basis.

5:            Resume of philosophy of technique

6:            General discussion, exhibit work and criticism.

Four periods devoted to work in addition to the six periods outlined above are required. The exact assignments will be worked out well in advance. An emphasis on regional subject material to be maintained throughout. Full demonstration of all work required. Laboratory assistants will be on constant duty five or six periods out of the total of 10 periods per week.

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Minor White-Philip Hyde Letters 2

October 25th, 2011

Minor White Letters To Philip Hyde 2

(Continued from the blog post, “Minor White-Philip Hyde Letters 1.”)

Minor White’s Letters And The San Francisco Art Institute

Piers, San Francisco Waterfront, Bay Bridge, San Francisco Bay, City of San Francisco, California, copyright 1948 by Philip Hyde.

(See the photograph large: “Piers, San Francisco Waterfront, California.”)

Philip Hyde first met Minor White in the 1946 Photography Summer Session taught by Ansel Adams at the world-renowned California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. Ansel Adams soon after made Minor White lead instructor of his photography program at the San Francisco Art Institute. Ansel Adams’ photography program was the first of all photography schools to teach creative photography as a full-time profession. Philip Hyde enrolled in the full time day student photography course taught by Minor White in 1947 and earned his certificate of completion in the Spring of 1950. The letter correspondence between Philip Hyde and Minor White began shortly after in May 1950. The letters of Minor White to Philip Hyde are clearly responses to letters from Philip Hyde to Minor White. However, the first three letters from Philip Hyde to Minor White appear to be missing. For more related background on Minor White, Alfred Stieglitz, Philip Hyde, Ansel Adams and other points in the history of photography see the blog post, “Minor White–Philip Hyde Letters.”

 

Minor White’s Letter To Philip Hyde

(From Philip Hyde’s correspondence file with Minor White. Permissions in process from the Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey, copyright by the Trustees of Princeton University?)

 

13  July  1950

Dear EXTATIC Youse Both,

The voice of the Junipers

Articulate the stars

You the words and the wisdom of the moon over sleeping bags

OH BROTHER

You sure have it bad.

And so I shall leave it to youth and vinegar – the whole outdoors. Otherwise I should enjoy a night or two contemplating nature – I think some of the the sting of camping out is slowly going away – not so much that I plan on doing anything about it, but it is going. And I trust that is of great comfort to you.

Your letters to Duggins – great stuff. I was feeling mean the other morning so wrote a letter to above twerp also. And my answer was interesting – he wanted to know what I meant by “creative photography” and who the big names of the state were and who ought to be nominated for judges. And he mentioned that a couple of other SFers [People attending or graduated from photography schools in San Francisco, in those days essentially California School of Fine Arts students.] gave him the impression that Salon stuff was considered the rankest of amateurism. Not bad – in fact I loved it. So you were one of the SFers. Whoops!

The wording and quiet tone of explanation is just plain good. Keep it up.

I expect to answer the required info very soon. Judges is a hard one. In fact outside of some class mates I don’t know of any competent ones in town.

Summer Session is in the midst of utmost confusion. I am shooting five days a week – though only a few hours each day, running film at night and letting the negs pile up unprinted till it scares me. All over town, landscapes, fog, industry, people – anything that gets in the way that I can get. Even the cable car on Market Street. And incidentally I am feeling much better.

But hardly EXTATIC.

 

Minor [Hand written signature]

Do you agree with or apply Minor White’s approach to photographing, “All over town, landscapes, fog, industry, people – anything that gets in the way…”?

(Continued in the blog post, “Minor White-Philip Hyde Letters 3.”)

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