Autumn Moon: the High Sierra From Glacier Point

[bill_taylor2]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ansel12sep12,1,3313554.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true

 

Go see the article quick, or you'll have to register with the Times.

 

Basically, some astronomers have calculated that the moon will be in

the same position as it was in 1948 when Ansel Adams made the Autumn

Moon photo. They've worked it out as to where he stood and what phase

the moon was at. Bottom line, you can see it again from Glacier

Point, this Thursday evening, just after 7pm.

 

"The Texas State University astronomers, who have built a reputation

for pinpointing historical dates and events, also determined that the

celestial clock is ticking toward a rare encore performance early on

Thursday evening, re-creating the same dance of moon and mountains

Adams captured on the same date more than half a century ago.

 

That cycle repeats itself only once every 19 years, so folks in

Yosemite are expecting a crowd of amateur photographers, astronomers

and Adams aficionados atop Glacier Point, eager for a brief chance to

relive a scene documented by one of the 20th century's greatest

photographers."

 

This is a chance for you and a few hundred of your closest friends to

be like Ansel and get it on film. Unless it's cloudy that day.

 

bill

[skygzr]

I think this month's "Sky and Telescope" has an article on this, as well. It gives details of how the exact time of the photo was pinned down.

 

Some people get all riled up over this kind of thing...why spend a bunch of energy just so you can take the same picture as someone else? I'm not sure I'd want to go take the picture, but the detective work is certainly interesting.

[jim_rhoades]

Boy, Texas State will sure be bummed when they figure out old AA sandwiched it in during an all night darkroom session.

[Troll]

Today I get the "Homer Simpson Award." I just spent half an hour trying to log in with my TIMES ID&PASSWORD. It would have helped a lot if I'd noticed that it was the LA Times, not the NY Times. D'oh!

[User_503771]

I remember reading some years ago that someone computed the exact time that Adams shot "Moonrise Hernandez NM".

 

The point was not to be able to shoot the same photo, but to nail down when he produced the work. Art historians like to know that sort of thing.

 

This was/is important in Adams's case, because he was often hazy about exactly when he shot something. For example, over the years, he was quoted as saying that "Hernandez" was shot in, I think, three different years. The story told about how it was shot never varied, just his recollection of exactly *when* it was.

 

This is of most interest to people like students and scholars, and it's interesting to be able to fit the work in proper sequence, see what the guy was up to and when.

[dave_mueller]

In his book "Examples The Making of 40 Photographs", Adams says "Dr. David Elmore of the High Altitude Observatory at Boulder, Colorado, put a computer to work on the problem...he determined that the exposure was made at approximately 4:05 PM on October 31, 1941."

 

I've seen a straight print from the negative, it was indeed broad daylight, nowhere near sunset as it will be tomorrow.