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Author Topic: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book  (Read 2873 times)

JimAscher

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Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« on: October 26, 2016, 05:33:00 pm »

I haven't noticed that this recent (2014) book by Ansel Adams' biographer Mary Aliner has been mentioned yet in this forum.  It is available in hardcover, paperback and ebook (the latter of which I am currently reading).  It is reasonably well written (but not without occasional cliches) and gives a good overview of American photography and photographers in the first half of the 20th Century.  A quote from its Amazon listing follows:

"Group f.64 is perhaps the most famous movement in the history of photography, counting among its members Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Willard Van Dyke, and Edward Weston. Revolutionary in their day, Group f.64 was one of the first modern art movements equally defined by women. From the San Francisco Bay Area, its influence extended internationally, contributing significantly to the recognition of photography as a fine art.

"The group-first identified as such in a 1932 exhibition-was comprised of strongly individualist artists, brought together by a common philosophy, and held together in a tangle of dynamic relationships. They shared a conviction that photography must emphasize its unique capabilities-those that distinguished it from other arts-in order to establish the medium's identity. Their name, f.64, they took from a very small lens aperture used with their large format cameras, a pinprick that allowed them to capture the greatest possible depth of field in their lustrous, sharply detailed prints. In today's digital world, these "straight?? photography champions are increasingly revered.

"Mary Alinder is uniquely positioned to write this first group biography. A former assistant to Ansel Adams, she knew most of the artists featured. Just as importantly, she understands the art. Featuring fifty photographs by and of its members, Group f.64 details a transformative period in art with narrative flair."
« Last Edit: October 26, 2016, 05:40:16 pm by JimAscher »
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HSakols

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2016, 08:47:35 pm »

As someone who resides in Yosemite, I enjoyed reading this book. It once again helped me understand what the west was all about in regards to photography. It also reaffirms why on earth I want to take photographs in a day and age of everyone is a photographer.  It sure would have been swell to have bought a place in the 1930's in Carmel, CA.  And they thought Ansel was little bit Hoity Toity but tolerated him. 
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Rob C

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #2 on: October 27, 2016, 04:31:49 am »

The problem with photo books, and I have a few too, is that they don't come just with pictures. And they don't come just with pictures because publishers believe that they need writers to lend those publications gravitas.

Of my little collection, only two come with the photographer's words and not those of a writer. Frankly, writers about photography seem to understand very little about the medium, and what they write is a regurgitation of every other writer's effort. I would far prefer a well-printed photo book without any babble, than a lengthy tome with not a lot going for it but densely printed words from an even more dense writer.

Photography books are like books about paintings: they are what they represent. They are a visual delight - or not - and words are nothing but junk piled on top to make a larger publication seem more worthy of the punter's shilling.

If there has to be writing, then please, please confine it to biography and not art criticism, which is crap. The viewer either likes or does not like what he or she sees. That's the deal; don't distort it. (Here I refer to the writers, not any poster!)

I have learned to pay no heed to anything sellers of books, cars or snake oil say. They simply want to move product.

Rob

Rob C

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2016, 08:44:37 am »

I received this today; make of it what you will:

2016 Lucie Awards
Damiani / Matsumoto Editions win Book publisher of the Year: Classic
 
Damiani / Matsumoto Editions were honored with the 2016 Lucie Award in the category of Book Publisher of the Year: Classic for the book Kitchen Table Series by American artist Carrie Mae Weems.
The Lucie Awards is the premiere annual event honoring the greatest achievements in photography. (My italics.) The photography community from around the globe pays tribute to the most outstanding people in the field. Each year, the Lucie Advisory Board nominates deserving individuals across a variety of categories. Once these nominations have been received, an honoree in each category is selected. The honorees are presented with the Lucie statue during a spectacular evening at the Lucie Awards gala ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

 
Carrie Mae Weems
Kitchen Table Series
 
Kitchen Table Series is the first publication dedicated solely to this early and important body of work by the American artist Carrie Mae Weems. The 20 photographs and 14 text panels that make up Kitchen Table Series tell a story of one woman’s life, as conducted in the intimate setting of her kitchen. The kitchen, one of the primary spaces of domesticity and the traditional domain of women, frames her story, revealing to us her relationships—with lovers, children, friends—and her own sense of self, in her varying projections of strength, vulnerability, aloofness, tenderness, and solitude. As Weems describes it, this work of art depicts “the battle around the family . . . monogamy . . . and between the sexes.” Weems herself is the protagonist of the series, though the woman she depicts is an archetype. 'Kitchen Table Series' seeks to reposition and reimagine the possibility of women and the possibility of people of color, and has to do with, in the artist’s words “unrequited love.” Go to Kitchen Table Series

Seguici sui social

Damiani
Via dello Scalo 3/2 ABC, 40131 Bologna - Italy - Tel. +39 051 4380747
info@damianieditore.com - www.damianieditore.com

It pretty much encapsulates much that turns me off.

Rob

Rob C

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #4 on: October 27, 2016, 08:46:43 am »

The problem with photo books photo fora, and I contribute to a few too, is that they don't come just with pictures...

;-)


;-)

Difference, though, is that you can answer back on the Internet!  Screamng at a book gets you nowhere other than, if observed, into a place with rubber walls.

Rob

Rob C

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #5 on: October 27, 2016, 10:38:27 am »

Rob, keep on bouncing off them: I do.

;-)


Yes, Keith, but they might not let me back out when I have had enough bouncing for the day.

16.30 hrs: I must now decide whether to go out with the camera and make some amazing pictures; just go and do the shopping for veggies and fruit, or try to do both on the same trip. Decisions, decisions! Oh, and stay out of the sunshine all at the same time. ;-(

Rob

GrahamBy

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #6 on: October 27, 2016, 11:06:19 am »

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Isaac

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #7 on: October 27, 2016, 12:12:46 pm »

I haven't noticed that this recent (2014) book by Ansel Adams' biographer Mary Aliner has been mentioned yet in this forum.

http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=73133.msg791795#msg791795

Also "Looking at Ansel Adams: The Photographs and the Man"
« Last Edit: October 29, 2016, 01:44:54 pm by Isaac »
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Rob C

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2016, 02:50:44 pm »

Here you go: a writer complaining about art being about complaining.

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-culture-of-complaint-guerrilla-girls-tate/18886#.WBIYBeB95aS

An interesting read, Graham; I think that photography has many problems when it comes to jumping into bed with the other graphic arts. Perhaps the aspect that seems most clearly to be a problem, from my perspective, is that the other ones don't have, riding on their back, the difficulty that a snap does: it's essentially of something that exists in reality, no matter how the image of that something may be manipulated. The other arts are assumed to be inventions and, perhaps, just perhaps, good (or poor) representations of something. The unfortunate guy with the camera isn't given that freedom very much: he gets judged on the viewer's take on how well or otherwise he's treated the real object. In other words, he's denied the benefit of the doubt that a painter is not.

In effect, this binds the photographer (as artist) to the same rather tight norms that tie the hands of the local advertising fashion photographer, but hardly those of the editorial one in the Big Smokes of this world.

On top of this, there's the problem Sieff identified and pilloried: the 'guru' who studied the medium but couldn't dream of making a go of it, so turned (bitter) pundit instead. They are everywhere, not just in chichi galleries, as we both can see. So the culture of complaint is not only pushing inwards from outside, but is within the citadel itself.

The happiest place for photographs is within the photographer's own mind.

Rob

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #9 on: October 27, 2016, 05:24:11 pm »

The happiest place for photographs is within the photographer's own mind.

Rob
+1!
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churly

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #10 on: October 28, 2016, 11:04:08 am »

Yes, this pretty profound.
 
I have been considering starting a new thread - something like 'With Prejudice" for images I like but don't expect that anyone else will like.  But then it would probably be a pretty lonely place.  :)
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Chuck Hurich

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Group f.64 Movement -- Recent Book
« Reply #11 on: October 28, 2016, 12:31:59 pm »

I have been considering starting a new thread - something like 'With Prejudice" for images I like but don't expect that anyone else will like.  But then it would probably be a pretty lonely place.  :)
Sounds like just the place for me, Chuck.
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-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)
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