Ansel Adams in Our Time
Ansel Adams in Our Time runs through August 6, 2023 at the de Young Museum of San Francisco.
Adams' photography, as we all well know, was masterful. We all aspire to show light and dimension half as well as he did. The influence of his work protected much of the Sierra from becoming as overdeveloped as Lake Tahoe. He reigns supreme among landscape photographers.
The exhibit takes us through the stages of Adams' photographic career, from taking pictures mostly from near his family home in what is now the Seacliff, San Francisco, through some more urban photography, out to the Colorado Plateau with George O'Keefe to photograph Din<é> dances, up into the Sierra, to the internment camps at Manzanar, to Hawai'i (where he complained of the humidity), and out to Timbisha/Death Valley. The exhibit shows a short film of Adams and some other photographers, with their heavy photographic equipment, in clothing that today would be considered entirely inadequate, climbing up the south wall of Yosemite Valley, grasping snow in their bare hands, to photograph the surface of Half Dome.
The exhibit includes the work of some photographers who influenced Adams, such as Carleton Watkins, and also the work of some more contemporary photographers who (like all of us) were influenced by him. As we've all been inundated with Adams' work for our entire lives, I will write here about the work of these less familiar others. Being included in an Ansel Adams exhibit raises the expectation in the viewer that the work will be of similar quality to that of Adams, and it was eminently clear here that no one else could live up to the standard set by the master.
My favorites of the works by Adams-influenced artists were those who photographed some of his less well-known subjects:
Bryan Schutmaat (American, b. 1983)
Bryan Schutmaat masterfully captured the devastation of boom and bust mountain towns. I absolutely loved the symbolism with the cemetery in front of the beautifully-lit background here:
Will Wilson (Diné [Navajo], b. 1969)
I was surprised to learn that Adams' work included some portraits, and that those were as marvelous as his landscape work. The exhibit featured several photographs of the Diné dances by Adams. It also featured this fabulous self-portrait of Will Wilson, demonstrating the contradictions of the modern life of the Diné and other Indians. I was delighted by this art.
Meghann Riephenhoff (American, b. 1979)
Riepenhoff created this amazing triptych of cyanotypes by placing photo-sensitive paper into the surf of the Puget Sound. The wall description of her work in the exhibit compared it to Adams' Surf Sequences. I did not think Riepenhoff's work much resembled Surf Sequences, but I did find it brilliant and inspirational in its own right. I want to run out to the beach with some paper and chemicals!
It is an immense challenge in landscape photography to take an iconic scene, what we call a "mature subject," of which everyone has seen hundreds of photos, and make it your own. Several of the photographers in the exhibit used unusual techniques to capture Adams' very familiar subjects in unique ways, to varying degrees of success:
Binh Dahn (American, b. Vietnam, 1977)
Although he is younger than I am, Binh Danh used daguerrotypes to capture the same iconic Yosemite scenes as Adams did. He achieved the incredible clarity for which daguerrotypes are known, with some unusual effects such as the waterfalls appearing pale blue.
Abelardo Morrell (American, b. Cuba, 1948)
Abelardo Morrell also shoots iconic scenes, such as Old Faithful and here, Mt. Moran from the Grand Tetons, but he does it by using a device similar to a camera obscura called a tent camera. He uses a periscope to project a scene onto the ground under a tent, and then uses a tethered laptop to photograph the projection with a digital camera. The results often have an Impressionist look. I found that often the surface of the ground would be in sharp focus, while the projected scene was somewhat out of focus, and I wondered how the images would look if he had focused instead on the scene and left the ground blurry.
Arno Rafael Minkkinen (American, b. Finland, 1945)
Arno Rafael Minkkinen includes abstract nudes of himself in his landscape photography. He shapes his body to match the landscape in the background. I thought this was a fascinating idea, but I noticed that his depth of field had been too shallow to show both himself and, say, Tunnel View, in good focus. I was distracted by seeing Liberty Cap in poor focus.
David Benjamin Sherry (American, b. 1981)
I was not familiar with Sherry before this exhibit, but, in looking at his website, I can see he has done some wonderful work. He incorporates his gay identity into his work in ways that were only made clear to me on reading his text about them. I could see that this technique was very effective in his 2019 series American Monuments, where he photographed sites that were threatened by the Trump Administration. I did not think it had quite the same effectiveness in the photos that were included in the exhibit, such as this one of Zabriskie Point.
Matthew Brandt (American, b. 1982)
Matthew Brandt creates photo silkscreens using condiments. Here, ketchup and mustard create an effect on Half Dome that looks a little bit like color toning. Unfortunately, though, the condiments smear out some of the foreground, and some parts of Half Dome look blown out here.
Catherine Opie (American, b. 1961)
I was familiar with some of Opie's amazing portraits before I saw this exhibit. But I think maybe she should stick to portraits. This photo of, I guess, Tunnel View, makes kind of an interesting abstract with some nice tones and colors, but you keep waiting for it to resolve on the screen, don't you? Adams was obsessed with perfection in focus.
I will finish with a couple of photos by Adams himself. I adored this self-portrait that he took in Monument Valley while waiting for the perfect light to photograph the scene.
I'm sure you can see why I just wanted to squee with delight at this 1938 photo of a subject so near and dear to myself and many of my friends. Just look at the beautiful detail on the IOOF building, all faded now! I guess it shouldn't be any particular surprise that Adams photographed Bodie, but I just loved seeing it!
All in all, it was a wonderful exhibit, although I felt that it was too crowded for a thing that required reservations. It is a great thing to live in a place where we have such cultural resources. True to the reputation of the city, though, when I returned to Mather, I found that the visitors from Texas who had parked two spaces in front of me were not having such a great day in Golden Gate Park.
Beth Zuckerman, self-portrait
I am a high-energy creature of passion, a photographer and an aerial dancer. I share with you my journey as an artist.