Ansel Adams At 100. Reviews?

Has anyone purchased or seen in person the book Ansel Adams At 100? If so, can you provide your thoughts or a review?

 

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Thanks.

 

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Dan

I spent almost two hours looking at the book (I didn't purchase it

eventually). See:

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~qtluong/photography/lf/books/landscape-bw.html

while i have thoroughly enjoyed several of mr szarkowski's previous

books, i just cant imagine that the world needed another book about

ansel adams.

If you have most of Adams' other exhibition books (i.e., not merely

his technical guides), you'll want this one to complete your

collection. If you don't have many of his other books, the $150 might

be better divided up among several of the earlier collections and

then waiting for this one if/when it's released in paperback.

 

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Especially valuable in the new book are some vintage vs. later print

comparisons, which are not available anywhere else; Szarkowski

generally prefers the former and explains why. I was pleased to see

some lesser-known (and unknown) images, but wish there had been more

of AA's abstract/modernist/closeup work and not as many pure

landscapes. But the people who buy AA's books and calendars

apparently prefer the "Wagnerian" landscapes (Ralph Steiner's phrase)

so the publishers understandably emphasized the kind of pictures they

know will sell.

 

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The best part of the book, interestingly enough, may be the essay by

Szarkowski, perhaps the finest writer on photography of our time (to

my mind the only one who comes close to him is Robert Adams; for what

it's worth, both are accomplished photographers). Szarkowski has read

just about everything ever written by and about Ansel and puts it all

into clear perspective, from claims that Adams printed more contrast

in later years because his eyesight was failing (not the whole story,

he says) to Adams' realization at mid-century that his creative years

were behind him. It is the best essay on Adams I've read anywhere.

 

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The printing quality of the book is exceptional, though I'm still

partial to the work of Dave Gardner, who printed most of the previous

AA/Little Brown books and is still doing the annual AA calendars

(including the 2002 "AA at 100" calendar; I haven't been able to

compare the reproductions in the calendar to those in the book).

 

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Bottom line: A nice piece and a reasonably fresh centenary

assessment, given how overexposed (and some would say overrated) AA

is (it would be a wonderful gift for many photographers). I still

wish that someone would assemble a more comprehensive and critical

overview of hundreds of AA images (ala Amy Conger's heavyweight

catalogue of CCP's Weston archive), putting in some of AA's

commercial work, his awful portraits, and a detailed review of his

career trajectory, workload, and client list. Given the stranglehold

that the AA Publishing Rights Trust has on AA's work, however

(witness the wretched "AA in Color" book and their refusal to let

Jonathan Spaulding reprint any AA photos in his relatively uncritical

but not-fully-authorized biography), we're only likely to get the

sanitized Adams. Viewed in that constricting light, the "AA at 100"

actually manages to break a surprising amount of new ground.

 

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By the way, many Borders stores have the book in stock should you

wish to look at it before buying.

 

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Dan,

 

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I recently purchased the book. Although it is expensive, I think it

is worth having for a couple of reasons: First, great care has

gone into the reproduction and presentation of the prints. Most

of us get to see original Adams prints only in museums for

perhaps a few hours every couple of years. (And when I saw the

Adams exhibit in Portland, Maine two years ago, the lighting was

deliberately dim to help preserve the prints.) For those of us who

print large-format black and white landscapes, it is both

instructive and inspirational to have good reproductions of

Adams's work readily to hand. Second, the sequencing of the

images is very interesting. There is some loose grouping by

subject. Plates 35 to 45, for example, are photographs of dead

trees or details of stumps. Plates 72 to 74 are photographs of

Lake McDonald taken from the same camera position, where

differences in the water, sky, focal length of the lens used, and

the printing, give each image a different feeling. Plates 104-105

and 109-110 show the same negative printed by Adams at

different times. The two prints of Mt. McKinley and Wonder Lake,

Plates 109-110 are particularly fascinating to contemplate in light

of the commentary from John Szarkowski, who writes the

introductory essay. Szarkowski not only finds the earlier print

superior to the later, he writes as if the later print (made in the

late 70's) were actually grotesque: "Why this radiant peak . . .

should have been transformed into a dirty snowdrift is a mystery

to this viewer." I confess I prefer the later print, but Szarkowski's

provocative comments have certainly impelled me to articulate

and defend my preference.

 

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In sum, I strongly recommend the book, but do urge you to shop

around on line for the best price. Amazon.com had the best

price that I could find ($105).

 

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David Mark

If you're going to purchase the book through amazon.com, by

following the link

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0821225154/alargeformatphot/

you'd help support the LF page :-)

Does anybody else take issue with the title of this book?<br>I hate to

break it to the author, but Ansel Adams is dead! He did not reach his

100th birthday, and now never will.<br>A book really showing the work

of Ansel Adams at 100 would be a very slim, not to say ethereal,

volume indeed.

Pete, at least in the US this kind of titling isn't uncommon. There

was a very good little book of essays on Weston called "EW 100"

published on the 100th anniversary of his birth, and I also know of

an "F. Scott Fitzgerald at 100" centennial tribute (like "AA at 100,"

both of these books were definitely posthumous publications).

The book is available in paperback from the SFMOMA; I recently saw the

show and purchased the book while there. The show was well rounded

for what Szarkowski set out to do but previous to seeing this show I

saw the "In Praise of Nature" show at the George Eastman House and

found that to be superior in overall quality not to mention the other

fine photographer included in the exhibition.

I saw this book, and frankly, I didn't think it offered that much that is new. I have several Ansel Adams books, and I didn't see the value of including this one as well.

 

Also, I wasn't that impressed with the selection of photos. Many of the photographs lacked "vista" for which A.A. was so well known. At the same time, I know that the editor wanted to include photo's that hand't been as much in the public eye.

Like Neil, I did take a close look at the book and decided against buying it, for the same reason. I have 5-6 Ansel's books already and this one would not have added much to them. If I did not have any of his books, I think it would be better to buy 2-3 of his other books for the same money.