Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale 
<stevekale@b...> wrote:
> I'd go one step further.  Not only did he have vision as to the 
final image
> but he had an enormous understanding of the technical requirements 
of his
> chosen mode of expression.  Witness the interview when he talks 
about having
> to calculate the exposure for that capture.  One must not only 
have a flair
> or taste for what is a good image -  a critic has these qualities.

Not quite. Critics can be valuable but they are analysts and 
talkers, not doers. 

Ansel's "calculations" are traditional process,  organized and 
refined by him with Minor White (co-creator of "Zone System" and IMO 
better photographer and teacher from important perspectives)... not 
to mention other people who used and mentored the same techniques 
without popularising them. 

  One must
> also have a true understanding of the technical requirements and 
limitations
> involved in bringing that vision to reality.  As he stressed 
repeatedly,
> skill at both is required of a good photographer.

Not true at all. 

Ansel learned, helped organize, and taught *a possible approach to a 
narrow range of photography.* There are/were many other "good 
photographers" (his equals) who didn't/don't: people like Henri 
Cartier Bresson, Joseph Muench, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and, 
more recently, Sebastio Salgado...obvious examples. 

Ansel was important as a teacher within one narrow genre, as 
important for his support of the Sierra Club and its members 
enthusiasm for the Sierra Nevada Mts and environmentalism generally.

He was very analytic, lacking broad interests and emotional 
complexity IMO. He didn't appreciate the excitement of his home town 
in his youth (San Francisco), the greatest music of his own youth 
(jazz), never explored color photography to anything like the depth 
of his peers. 

He was a fine portrait photographer (IMO should have done more) and 
did good industrial work. He was very successful selling prints and 
reproduction rights, from the early Sixties (eg "Half Dome" Hills 
Brothers 5# coffee cans that seemed to grow marijuana seedlings in 
every kitchen window in Northern California).  

>