Tag Archives: Ansel Adams

In the zone at Yosemite: A photography class hits the road

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El Capitan on left. Oliver at the Eureka Valley Sand Dunes on right.

Ansel Adams famously taught at ArtCenter in the 1940’s and invented Zone Theory with Fred Archer while at the school. Peter Suszynski is still teaching their timeless concept, and offering students the unique opportunity to visit and photograph Yosemite National Park – a favorite haunt of Adams and the ideal place to put his theory to the test. The assignment for the class is to create six unique but cohesive images. It is a difficult project but Pete’s guidance and the Zone Theory system make it possible. Continue reading

New Ansel Adams Images Surface

Last year, there was a controversy over a stash of antique negatives bought at a Fresno garage sale thought to be the early work of renowned photographer and Art Center faculty member Ansel Adams. And now, there are new virtually unknown works by Adams, but these have the documentation proving that they are indeed by the famed photographer—information the ones from the summer lack.

Culture Monster reports that the collection of 29 virtually unknown pictures by Adams and his friend and mentor Cedric Wright are on display through Friday at the Chadwick School in Palos Verdes.

From the article: “The 13 pictures by Adams — on display through Friday at the Palos Verdes Library’s Peninsula Center building — come from 1941, when Chadwick, now a private day school but then a boarding school, hired him to produce its fifth-anniversary promotional catalog, and 1942, when Adams returned to shoot a tennis exhibition at the hilltop campus featuring the great Jack Kramer.”

Read more: ‘Never seen’ but well-documented Ansel Adams photographs on display in Palos Verdes

Ansel Adams Negatives: The Real Deal?

Could it be? A Fresno man thinks that a stash of antique negatives bought at a garage sale are the early work of famed photographer and Art Center faculty member Ansel Adams.

Check out this very interesting L.A. Times article about the negatives and the debate surrounding them—some think they are legit; Adams’ family says otherwise.

One theory is that scorch marks on the negatives are proof that they survived a 1937 fire in Adams’ studio. Adams reportedly tossed stacks of negatives into a bathtub to save them from the flames.

Reporter Mike Boehm writes: “Alt theorized that Adams brought the Norsigian negatives to Southern California in the early 1940s as examples for his students at what’s now the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. ‘It would not be unreasonable for him to show the fire-damaged plates and regale his students with what was surely a great story,’ Alt wrote. He added, ‘In almost all of the photographs, the compositions are virtually flawless,’ indicating ‘a photographer of singular vision and talent’.”

What do you think? Are these the real deal, or just wishful thinking?

Read more: Ansel Adams negatives revealed? Fresno man makes his case and
Experts say lost images of Ansel Adams found