Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => Discussing Photographic Styles => Topic started by: RSL on April 30, 2010, 07:34:48 pm
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There's an interesting "photography" article in yesterday's (April 29) Leisure and Arts section of the Wall Street Journal about the work Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange did together at Manzanar, the "relocation center" (read concentration camp) where we sent our citizens of Japanese descent during WW II. Ansel shot pictures of the surrounding hills and included chunks of the nearly empty Manzanar streets. Dorothea shot poignant pictures of the people. According to the article: "In 1961 Lange said about Adams's taking landscape pictures at the Manzanar Relocation Center: 'It was shameful. That's Ansel. He doesn't have much sense about these things.'" In 1962 Adams wrote her: "You happen to be one of the very few who has brought enough deeply felt human emotion into your work to make it bearable to me. I wish you would try and think of yourself as a fine artist -- which you are." Bottom line: both were fine artists, but with very, very different styles.
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Ansel shot pictures of the surrounding hills which included chunks of the nearly empty Manzanar streets. Dorothea shot poignant pictures of the people.
That's not entirely true. Ansel shot dozens of photos of people in the camp in addition to his photos of the surrounding landscape. If Lange only remembers his landscape images, such as Mount Williamson Clearing Storm, that's her problem. As with many who consider themselves documentary photographers, Lange's issue is her assumption that faces alone tell the complete story.
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Yes Adams shot some landscapes around Manzanar, and they are useful in explaining the desolation of the place.
Adams didn't shoot many anguished faces at Manzanar. In general his human subjects appear rather upbeat, presented sympathetically as ordinary people at a time when mindless racism cast them as somehow malevolent. Overall I think Adam's characterizations were of greater service to the internees than Lange's. By the editorial standards of the time Adam's work was more presentable than Lange's somewhat amateurish point & shoot efforts.
In looking over some of those pictures I personally get the feeling that Adam's was more connected with his subjects than Lange.
http://zoltanjokay.de/zoltanblog/2009/08/a...lager-manzanar/ (http://zoltanjokay.de/zoltanblog/2009/08/ansel-adams-manzanar-photographsansel-adams-internierungslager-manzanar/)
http://www.nps.gov/manz/photosmultimedia/d...Id=187#e_129458 (http://www.nps.gov/manz/photosmultimedia/dorothea-lange-gallery.htm?eid=129458&root_aId=187#e_129458)
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What exactly makes Ms Lange's opinion "unbiased"?
IMHO "unbiased opinion" is somewhat of an oxymoron in general, but especially so when talking about something as subjective as photography.
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By the editorial standards of the time Adam's work was more presentable than Lange's somewhat amateurish point & shoot efforts.
Yes, Dorothea often shot "somewhat amateurish point & shoot efforts" like White Angel Breadline, and Migrant Mother.
Jeff, Where did the "unbiased opinion" idea come from? Her opinion certainly was biased. And, yes, I agree that a term like "unbiased opinion" is an oxymoron -- just like the term "social science."
Actually, since these two were pretty good friends I have a feeling Dorothea was pulling the reporter's leg a bit when she said that.
My own estimation is that both of them did a reasonably good job at Manzanar, but I think Gene Smith would have done better than either of them. Of course WW II would have been over by the time Gene finished.
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Jeff, Where did the "unbiased opinion" idea come from? Her opinion certainly was biased. And, yes, I agree that a term like "unbiased opinion" is an oxymoron -- just like the term "social science."
It came from your thread title/subtitle.
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... By the editorial standards of the time Adam's work was more presentable than Lange's somewhat amateurish point & shoot efforts.
In looking over some of those pictures I personally get the feeling that Adam's was more connected with his subjects than Lange...
For me, both look like typical propaganda photos: smiley faces, neatly dressed people, happy children, etc.
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It came from your thread title/subtitle.
Oops. You're right. I was being facetious. I'm quite sure her opinion was very much biased. You have to remember that this was a lady who could crack a joke.
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Ansel Adams was a great photographer and apparently a gentleman.
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Oops. You're right. I was being facetious.
And that, my friend, is what are for.
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And that, my friend, is what are for.
Chuck, Is it really true that we've reached that point?
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Chuck, Is it really true that we've reached that point?
Only if you get lazy and refuse to use the ;-) keys, which is quite understandable if using a device like this tiny one on which my world currently depends. No, not a pacemaker, a tiny computer. Which might also include a pacemaker under that heading too but I don't know for sure, not having one - pacemaker, that is, that I do not have. You see why those idiot faces can also have a role (can't find how to make the circumflex work - it gives an acute instead) in communication?
Why does it rain so much? It's supposed to remain in the plain, in Spain, not on the islands.
Rob C
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Chuck, Is it really true that we've reached that point?
Well Russ, as we cannot see the twinkle in your eye from the comfort of our barcaloungers, we have to rely on our small, yellow, round-faced friends
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Chuck, Is it really true that we've reached that point?
Contextual cues from tone of voice or expression don't come through on the web, that's why emoticons were invented after all. I don't think the smiley icons work in thread titles, but some quotes around the word unbiased might have made it a little more clear. Given the context of what was written in your post it wasn't clear to me that the "unbiased opinion" phrase was meant to be facetious.
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...I agree that a term like "unbiased opinion" is an oxymoron -- just like the term "social science."
I bristle when I see this meme repeated endlessly. Social science is a science.
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I bristle when I see this meme repeated endlessly. Social science is a science.
Do you mean like in the sense of genetic engineering, or even bristl(e)ing?
A rose by any name...
Rob C
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I bristle when I see this meme repeated endlessly. Social science is a science.
Bristling is a human right. I'm pretty sure social "scientists" would agree... or maybe not. Depends on who's running the "experiment."
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Bristling is a human right. I'm pretty sure social "scientists" would agree... or maybe not. Depends on who's running the "experiment."
I promise to respond with a crushing reply... just as soon as they let me out of this Skinner box.
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I sympathize with the notion. But just because the field is made up largely of bad scientists who do science badly doesn't make it less science. I can't help it if analytical philosophy was made unfashionable a century ago by people who realized there was money to be made in technology.
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I sympathize with the notion. But just because the field is made up largely of bad scientists who do science badly doesn't make it less science. I can't help it if analytical philosophy was made unfashionable a century ago by people who realized there was money to be made in technology.
Come on, even more realised there were yet greater riches to be mined in the frailties and fears within peoples' sexual doubts and identities! Science - bah! Snake oil marketing!
Rob C
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I promise to respond with a crushing reply... just as soon as they let me out of this Skinner box.
Thirty years ago I wrote an article on this subject for a discussion group. You can read it at http://www.pkinfo.com/essays/commoncause.html. The article explains how branches of philosophy became "social science."
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I'd wager most of us here have been punished by bad science and bad scientists at some point in our lives, if not all along the way.
Where things really went bad was with the misguided attempts in the 20th c. to expunge philosophy, specifically metaphysics, from the sciences. The domination of the landscape by Logical Positivism, Logical Empiricism, and its offspring such as Skinnerian Behaviorism, represented a bleak period in history, not just for human knowledge, but for the human condition.
Metaphysics, just the ordinary business of reasoning about unobservables (and nothing to do with mysticism), eventually made a return in the early 1970s with the publication of a seminal work, easily the most important work of philosophy published in more than a half century. Anyone know what this work is? I ask because most people don't, and that illustrates my point keenly. [Answer to come.] The importance of metaphysics has not to date made itself understood in any of the scientific fields, specifically the social sciences, and progress is not nearly what it could and should be. But there are important contributions out there in naturalist philosophy, just not where they do most of us any good.
Science is a natural kind. It exists independently of any of our attempts to characterize it. It exists in a natural tendency, and it is surprisingly robust, robust enough to give the illusion that we're somehow always on the right track, even when we aren't. So when I say the social sciences are proper sciences, it's because they are, and it just so happens that they are done badly most of the time. As a science that is heavy on the metaphysics component, it is more difficult to "see" the answers, and for the most part, all we have is a historical web of reasoning stretching back 2500 years to draw on.
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No one today is particularly proud of the relocation centers established for Japanese Americans
on the West Coast, but no one today can understand the situation in which Pearl Harbor
placed this country - very much like being stabbed in the back by someone we had (stupidly)
bent over backwards to accommodate. Nor were these camps "concentration camps." That's total
nonsense and cultural arrogance, regardless of how dispirited some of those unfortunate souls
appeared to be. The Japanese in Hawaii, many of whom were first generation and a group that
comprised a very large segment of the population, was not affected by the order to relocate into camps.
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...but no one today can understand the situation in which Pearl Harbor placed this country
Well, actually I can, Bike. I was almost twelve on December 7, 1941, and I was the one who heard the news on the radio and ran to tell my folks and grandparents (we were visiting them). I was delivering the Detroit News then, and after December 7th I often had to get out in the middle of the night and yell "Extra! Extra! Read all about it."
- very much like being stabbed in the back by someone we had (stupidly) bent over backwards to accommodate.
Well, the actual history is a bit more complicated than that. In those days the leaders in the home island were a warlike, nasty people. But I was in Japan seven years after the surrender and I can tell you the average Japanese isn't like that at all. We certainly weren't bending over backward to accomodate them. We were doing whatever we could to get them out of China., and there was no doubt in any rational mind that war with Japan was imminent.
Nor were these camps "concentration camps." That's total nonsense and cultural arrogance, regardless of how dispirited some of those unfortunate souls appeared to be. The Japanese in Hawaii, many of whom were first generation and a group that comprised a very large segment of the population, was not affected by the order to relocate into camps.
Yes, and eventually we let the Nisei fight for their country, and they did a hell of a job. The camps were a panicky, irrational reaction, and the whole thing is a blight on our history.
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Yes Adams shot some landscapes around Manzanar, and they are useful in explaining the desolation of the place.
Adams didn't shoot many anguished faces at Manzanar. In general his human subjects appear rather upbeat, presented sympathetically as ordinary people at a time when mindless racism cast them as somehow malevolent. Overall I think Adam's characterizations were of greater service to the internees than Lange's. By the editorial standards of the time Adam's work was more presentable than Lange's somewhat amateurish point & shoot efforts.
In looking over some of those pictures I personally get the feeling that Adam's was more connected with his subjects than Lange.
http://zoltanjokay.de/zoltanblog/2009/08/a...lager-manzanar/ (http://zoltanjokay.de/zoltanblog/2009/08/ansel-adams-manzanar-photographsansel-adams-internierungslager-manzanar/)
http://www.nps.gov/manz/photosmultimedia/d...Id=187#e_129458 (http://www.nps.gov/manz/photosmultimedia/dorothea-lange-gallery.htm?eid=129458&root_aId=187#e_129458)
Adams portraits look absolutely brilliant, portraying the people as ordinary Americans and each with items to display their occupation in America.
Was that not an excellent way to convey it to the American people, that they were precise that American people??
Impressive photos. First time I see such reportage by Adams.
Best regards
Anders
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"Adams portraits look absolutely brilliant, portraying the people as ordinary Americans and each with items to display their occupation in America.
Was that not an excellent way to convey it to the American people, that they were precise that American people??
Impressive photos. First time I see such reportage by Adams."
Best regards
Anders
I couldn't agree more, Adams was not fear mongering but appears to have been trying to make America understand that these were our neighbors and friends. Fellow Americans