Re: "CALENDAR ARTIST"

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From: Janet Neuhauser (jneuhauser@silverlink.net)
Date: 09/08/02-04:03:58 PM Z


Keith Gerling wrote

> But really, the onus is on you to defend your position, to explain to
> us his failings, and I don't think you've done that.

Lsndscape, I think, requires the photographer to be in tip top form to organize
and shape the scene into something beyond just place. Landscape is about
light, form, and ironically abstraction. Ansel became very formulaic, which is
why I think Judy finds his work boring (as do many others). His work is always
about The Place for me and it's not enough. Perhaps what he really was was a
documentary photographer and as such gave us a good record of nature at her
grandest, I'm fine with that. I even bought a set of 18 postcards (for $3.00 I
might add) at a national park in southern utah. But I always wondered how he
did what he did for so many years without boring himself. I want to be
surprised and excited when I look at a landscape, and come back to it again
and again like a good portrait and discover something new. With Ansel, I just
don't do that. With so many others I do (Sally Mann, Ruth Thorne-Thomsen's
pinholes among others).

As an aside, I remember just starting to get serious about photography and
buying his series in the 70s. Struggling with the technical side of
photography, I thought he would help me figure it out. It wasn't until I read
the Minor White book (was it Zakia with whom he wrote that zone system book?)
years later that I understood what it all meant.

Just my humble Ansel opinion

Janet Neuhauser

>


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