Re: [Leica] Ansel Adams' West

[Peterson_Art@hq.navsea.navy.mil]

     Eric Welch wrote:
     
People who don't have an in-depth understanding of the West (U.S.), and the 
rugged beauty, and the amazing complexity, vast landscapes and the 
wonderful sense of  the primordial when tromping through the woods with 
nary another human for miles around, who have the hardest time with Ansel 
Adam's work I suspect. Not everyone mind you.
     
I grew up in the mountains of Oregon. Fishing along pure streams I could 
drink straight out of (long time ago!), and sleeping under a lean-to of fir 
boughs with a fire crackling outside and light snow falling. And never with 
a camera in those days. I was there for "it," not for making pictures. Too, 
bad, but I guess it's paid off in some ways. 
     
That's the rugged outdoors that caused me to instantly understand Ansel 
Adams' work. Nobody can tell me that his work has no meaning, because I know 
from my own life what many of his pictures are about. Some I don't 
understand either. That's the way with photography. But Ansel knew the West 
as intimately as just about anyone who ever lived out there. I almost said 
here, but for now I'm stuck in the midwest U.S. with my refuge of AA books 
and my other photo - getaway - books.
     
We can't blame people for not responding to his work if it's so alien to 
them they have no frame of reference to give them the same meanings we find 
in our hearts and memories. Photography is so personal a thing I can't 
imagine anyone being universally liked. Is there such a photographer? 
Certainly not Cartier-Bresson. 
     
     Eric,
     
     As one who grew up in suburban Philadelphia and has never even visited 
     the West but yet finds the spacious magnificence of Adams' photographs 
     immensely communicative, I would suggest that individual responses to 
     art, and the reasons for them, must be infinitely subtle and complex.  
     And they ARE individual, or as you've said, "so personal...[that]...I 
     can't imagine anyone being universally liked."  When we make known our 
     likes and dislikes and the reasons for them (as we SHOULD do, because 
     that's a good way to learn about any art and about each other's ideas 
     as well as our own), we should also try to maintain considerate regard 
     for the differing viewpoints of others, keeping in mind that there are 
     no absolute rights or wrongs here, but only relative ones.  Thanks for 
     posting your own personal, evocative, and perceptive response to those 
     photographs.
     
     Art Peterson