Read Online Ansel Adams by Mary Street Alinder - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mary Street Alinder
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luxuriating in the peaceful day before us.
Ansel dressed in attire appropriate to the occasion: lug-soled boots, dark trousers, bold plaid shirt, red photographer’s vest, and Stetson set at a jaunty angle. With their dueling Hasselblads and various lenses, our intrepid men rode off. (It was to Jim’s benefit that they both used the same camera, as it allowed him to borrow Ansel’s complete assortment of the latest lenses if the image dictated it.)
Ansel directed Jim across the Golden Gate Bridge and up along the headlands that oppose San Francisco. At a turnout, they turned in. Almost every place they photographed on these camera trips, Ansel had been to before, often many times. In the Bay Area as in Yosemite, his best pictures were made at locations that he knew very well, although changes of season, light, and weather could make all the difference.
They both photographed the Golden Gate Bridge. Ansel made some particularly strong compositions, including one looking through the bridge’s north tower and vertical suspension cables to the gray silhouette of the city beyond, which I later selected for his autobiography. 8 Ansel found this viewpoint a bit mournful. As a boy, he had often taken the ferry across to these same steep hills, where he had thought nothing of hiking up and down and up again. These memories sadly reminded him of his age and precarious health. Confined to the pavement, he suggested to Jim that they drive on. 9
Their next stop was an abandoned military gun emplacement, empty and cold but with gray concrete bunkers enlivened by particularly energetic, almost refined, graffiti. Although this was unlikely Adams subject matter, Ansel’s eye stopped as he began visualizing first one image, then another. His enthusiasm building, Ansel exposed four negatives. Jim made a portrait of an obviously happy and relaxed Ansel sitting in a recess of the bunker, smiling right at the camera.
Another reason that Ansel and Jim had such a good time together was that they were both always ready to eat, and neither was terribly fussy about what or where. Now, with their dinner bells ringing, Ansel knew exactly where to go for lunch: with pride he guided Jim to an old building in Sausalito, the former site of a famous brothel, now home to particularly succulent hamburgers.
Sated for the moment, they drove north and into the hills about San Rafael, where Ansel remembered a fine cemetery that he wanted to photograph again. They cruised street after street, but to no avail. After photographing an old white church sans graveyard, Ansel gave up, and they headed west to the ocean near Bolinas. After a couple of exposures of the weathered side of a building, it was time for a snack—an ice cream cone would do just fine. Nothing further appealed to them visually, however, and they wandered back to Hotel Meyer for short naps before dinner.
When he returned to his darkroom in Carmel a couple of days later, Ansel was still excited about the graffiti photographs. Having developed the negatives and made two large prints of a luminous orb of paint underlined with quick brushstrokes at its center, he tacked one print up with pushpins in the gallery area of the house and, after some deliberation, sat down and began to write about it.
For Ansel, the graffiti represented the power and beauty of art that could never be put into words. He had no idea why it had been painted or by whom, but to him, that made no difference. Recalling Stieglitz’s view, Ansel saw this picture as a symbol of the elusiveness of trying to define art, the basic quality that cannot be verbalized. Graffiti, Abandoned Military Installation, Golden Gate Recreational Area, California, 1982 became a chapter in 1983’s Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs. 10
Ansel and Jim continued to photograph together all through 1983, perhaps a day every other month, Ansel’s health permitting. One Saturday morning in February 1984, just as I was opening my eyes, I heard
Ansel dressed in attire appropriate to the occasion: lug-soled boots, dark trousers, bold plaid shirt, red photographer’s vest, and Stetson set at a jaunty angle. With their dueling Hasselblads and various lenses, our intrepid men rode off. (It was to Jim’s benefit that they both used the same camera, as it allowed him to borrow Ansel’s complete assortment of the latest lenses if the image dictated it.)
Ansel directed Jim across the Golden Gate Bridge and up along the headlands that oppose San Francisco. At a turnout, they turned in. Almost every place they photographed on these camera trips, Ansel had been to before, often many times. In the Bay Area as in Yosemite, his best pictures were made at locations that he knew very well, although changes of season, light, and weather could make all the difference.
They both photographed the Golden Gate Bridge. Ansel made some particularly strong compositions, including one looking through the bridge’s north tower and vertical suspension cables to the gray silhouette of the city beyond, which I later selected for his autobiography. 8 Ansel found this viewpoint a bit mournful. As a boy, he had often taken the ferry across to these same steep hills, where he had thought nothing of hiking up and down and up again. These memories sadly reminded him of his age and precarious health. Confined to the pavement, he suggested to Jim that they drive on. 9
Their next stop was an abandoned military gun emplacement, empty and cold but with gray concrete bunkers enlivened by particularly energetic, almost refined, graffiti. Although this was unlikely Adams subject matter, Ansel’s eye stopped as he began visualizing first one image, then another. His enthusiasm building, Ansel exposed four negatives. Jim made a portrait of an obviously happy and relaxed Ansel sitting in a recess of the bunker, smiling right at the camera.
Another reason that Ansel and Jim had such a good time together was that they were both always ready to eat, and neither was terribly fussy about what or where. Now, with their dinner bells ringing, Ansel knew exactly where to go for lunch: with pride he guided Jim to an old building in Sausalito, the former site of a famous brothel, now home to particularly succulent hamburgers.
Sated for the moment, they drove north and into the hills about San Rafael, where Ansel remembered a fine cemetery that he wanted to photograph again. They cruised street after street, but to no avail. After photographing an old white church sans graveyard, Ansel gave up, and they headed west to the ocean near Bolinas. After a couple of exposures of the weathered side of a building, it was time for a snack—an ice cream cone would do just fine. Nothing further appealed to them visually, however, and they wandered back to Hotel Meyer for short naps before dinner.
When he returned to his darkroom in Carmel a couple of days later, Ansel was still excited about the graffiti photographs. Having developed the negatives and made two large prints of a luminous orb of paint underlined with quick brushstrokes at its center, he tacked one print up with pushpins in the gallery area of the house and, after some deliberation, sat down and began to write about it.
For Ansel, the graffiti represented the power and beauty of art that could never be put into words. He had no idea why it had been painted or by whom, but to him, that made no difference. Recalling Stieglitz’s view, Ansel saw this picture as a symbol of the elusiveness of trying to define art, the basic quality that cannot be verbalized. Graffiti, Abandoned Military Installation, Golden Gate Recreational Area, California, 1982 became a chapter in 1983’s Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs. 10
Ansel and Jim continued to photograph together all through 1983, perhaps a day every other month, Ansel’s health permitting. One Saturday morning in February 1984, just as I was opening my eyes, I heard
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