by Ansel Adams
After Anne’s first husband, Charles Mayhew, lost his life in an unfortunate accident, she bravely faced parenting their three little girls. In 1971 Anne married Ken Helms, then a Unitarian minister, now a research psychologist. Ken helped tremendously in bringing up the girls.
Anne’s eldest daughter, Virginia, is a professional musician, who on her happy and frequent visits to us practices her instruments, the clarinet, flute, and saxophone, with a discipline that reminds me of myself. Alison has graduated from college, and we are very proud that she is now independent and successful in the business world. Anne’s youngest daughter, the lovely and exuberant Sylvia, is presently attending college.
Virginia turned over Five Associates to Anne, who has through brains and very hard work, built it into a fine business now called Museum Graphics. Anne produces cards and notes of most excellent quality that carry handsome reproductions of my photographs as well as those by Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and others.
Our son, Michael, attended Stanford. Unknown to us at the time, he applied some of his allowance money to flying lessons. During the Korean conflict Mike enlisted in the air force and became a fighter pilot. After his tour of duty, he continued flying with the California Air National Guard in Fresno, where he completed his undergraduate and then his premedical studies.
Michael and the vivacious Jeanne Victoria Falk were married in Yosemite in 1962. After receiving his degree from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, during which time their two children, Sarah and Matthew, were born, Michael began another tour of duty with the Air Force, this time as an intern in Washington, D.C., and as a flight surgeon and pilot-physician in Germany. In 1971 their family returned to Fresno, where Michael served his internal medicine residency and now practices as an internist, while continuing to fly jet trainers for the California Air Guard. Jeanne and Mike direct the former Best’s Studio, renamed the Ansel Adams Gallery in 1972, and when time permits enjoy the summer mountains and the winter skiing.
We were all immensely proud when Sarah earned her pilot’s license at eighteen. She is now in the midst of her years as a college student. Matthew is a very bright high school student with a love for books and reading as well as possessing a healthy athleticism.
So much for the family history. All goes well.
People often ask, “Why did your children (and now grandchildren) not take up serious photography?” If they had indicated such an interest, I would indeed have been pleased, but I consider it basically wrong to impose your career on your children. Both Anne and Michael followed rewarding directions and have imparted concepts of individualistic excellence to their children. I believe children must be treated as individuals from the start, not bound to their parents by bonds other than affection.
Most of us struggle throughout life to find ourselves and our appropriate channel. The finding depends as much upon good fortune as upon any quality of character or ability. Virginia was my good fortune. I could not have achieved what I have without her sublime understanding and tolerance over these many decades. Shortly after our marriage I wrote:
To Virginia
I would write you my love in a myriad shining lines,
Verse upon verse as fresh as swaying pines
Upon a snowy hill. And yet I know
I have no power to sound the deeps below
The world of vision and of flesh and voice
Wherein we wander. You, my heart’s first choice,
Are as the flowing winds upon the lea,
And as the ageless earth and shimmering sea.
So I shall sing with silence and will gaze
Through all the beauty of the gathering days
To the dim mountain and the quiet haze
Marking the final hour.
And you shall guess
That all our years have only served to bless
The wind and earth and sea.
All words are less.
9.
Straight Photography
DURING THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF OUR MARRIAGE I juggled two professions: music and photography. By 1930 I was wracked by indecision because I could not afford either emotionally or financially to continue splitting my time between them. I decided to return to New Mexico to complete the Taos book, hoping the Southwest summer sunlight and towering thunderclouds would inspire a decision.
Arriving unannounced at Los Gallos, I found it so crowded that Mabel had not one guest room left. I was introduced to Paul and Becky Strand, who invited me to stay with them in the extra bedroom of the small adobe guest house that Mabel had given them for the summer. I knew photographer Paul Strand by creative reputation, and I had seen his photographs in handsome photogravure reproductions in Stieglitz’s great photographic journal, Camera Work. Paul was a buoyant spirit and Becky a serene and beautiful woman.
That first evening I dined with the Strands and Georgia O’Keeffe. Strand inquired politely about my Taos Pueblo project, then I inquired if he had any prints to share. He asked if I would like to see his negatives, since he had made no prints that summer nor had he brought prints from New York. Of course I would!
The next afternoon Paul took a white sheet of paper and set it in the sunlight streaming through a south window. He placed me squarely in front of the paper and opened a box of 4×5-inch negatives. He handed them to me, admonishing, “Hold them only by the edges.”
They were glorious negatives: full, luminous shadows and strong high values in which subtle passages of tone were preserved. The compositions were extraordinary: perfect, uncluttered edges and beautifully distributed shapes that he had carefully selected and interpreted as forms—simple, yet of great power. I would have preferred to see prints, but the negatives clearly communicated Strand’s vision.
My understanding of photography was crystalized that afternoon as I realized the great potential of the medium as an expressive art. I returned to San Francisco resolved that the camera, not the piano, would shape my destiny. Virginia was very supportive of my decision; my mother and aunt reacted differently, pleading, “Do not give up the piano! The camera cannot express the human soul!”
I replied, “Perhaps the camera cannot, but the photographer can.”
Though committed, I was uncertain what Ansel Adams’s direction in photography should be. Increasingly, I detested the common pictorial photography that was then in vogue and also questioned the more sophisticated work of some San Francisco photographers because it clung to those pictorial skirts. There was nothing I responded to in this mannered style of photography. In fact I had seen little photography that I felt was art. My knowledge of the important people in the history of photography and the work of other creative photographers was abysmal.
With high energy I began to explore a personal photographic direction based on the inherent qualities of the photographic process itself. I abandoned my textured photographic papers and began using the same smooth, glossy-surfaced papers used by Paul Strand and Edward Weston to reveal every possible detail of the negative. I am unsure how much this change in paper affected my photographic “seeing,” but I suddenly could achieve a greater feeling of light and range of tones in my prints. I felt liberated; I could secure a good negative born from visualization and now consistently progress to a fine print on glossy paper.
One evening in 1932 there was a remarkable collection of sympaticos gathered at the Berkeley home of Willard Van Dyke, a University of California student and photographer: Van Dyke, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Henry Swift, Sonya Noskowiak, John Paul Edwards, and myself. I presented, with extroverted enthusiasm, my new sense of direction in photography. The response was immediate, striking powerful sparks of accord from the others, some of whom had already embarked on the same journey.
We agreed with missionary zeal to a group effort to stem the tides of oppressive pictorialism and to define what we felt creative photography to be. Perhaps most importantly, our efforts provided moral support for each other. Though we actually me
t together very few times as a group, I have found records that show that we paid dues, at least once, of ten dollars each.
On another evening at Willard’s, we bantered about what we should call ourselves. The young photographer Preston Holder was present that night, and he suggested we call ourselves “US 256,” the designation of a very small lens aperture many of us used to achieve greater sharpness and depth. Afraid that people would confuse us with a highway, I followed his line of thought, picked up a pencil, and drew a curving f/64. The graphics were beautiful and the symbol was apt—f/64 was the new aperture marking system identical to the old system number US 256.
Group f/64 became synonymous with the renewed interest in the philosophy of straight photography: that is, photographs that looked like photographs, not imitations of other art forms. The simple, straight print is a fact of life—the natural and predominant style for most of photography’s history—but in 1932 it had few active proponents.
The members of Group f/64 decided that our first goal would be to prepare a visual manifesto. Our work was varied but shared a fresh approach that stirred the wrath of the salonists, perplexed many in our local art world, and delighted a few pioneers including Lloyd Rollins, director of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. Lloyd had come to one of our gatherings at Willard’s where we had a small display of the group’s work. After looking at our photographs, he immediately offered us an exhibition. This was an important event for each of us; for me it was my third major museum exhibition. I had had a solo show in 1931 at the Smithsonian Institution, and both Edward and I had already had exhibits at the de Young earlier in 1932. For this exhibition the seven members of Group f/64 invited four others to show with us: Preston Holder, Consuela Kanaga, Alma Lavenson, and Brett Weston, knowing that they represented the same photographic philosophy. The exhibition dates were November 15 through December 31, 1932. There were a total of eighty photographs in the show, from four to ten prints per photographer, with prices that now seem ridiculous: Edward charged fifteen dollars per print and the rest of us charged ten.
At the exhibit we handed out a written manifesto to accompany the visual one. I was one of the authors and feel that it explains quite clearly what we were about.
GROUP f/64 MANIFESTO
The name of this Group is derived from a diaphragm number of the photographic lens. It signifies to a large extent the qualities of clearness and definition of the photographic image which is an important element in the work of members of this Group.
The chief object of the Group is to present in frequent shows what it considers the best contemporary photography of the West; in addition to the showing of the work of its members, it will include prints from other photographers who evidence tendencies in their work similar to that of the Group.
Group f/64 is not pretending to cover the entire field of photography or to indicate through its selection of members any deprecating opinion of the photographers who are not included in its shows. There are a great number of serious workers in photography whose style and technique does not relate to the metier of the Group.
Group f/64 limits its members and invitational names to those workers who are striving to define photography as an art form by a simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods. The Group will show no work at any time that does not conform to its standards of pure photography. Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form. The production of the “Pictorialist,” on the other hand, indicates a devotion to principles of art which are directly related to painting and the graphic arts.
The members of Group f/64 believe that photography, as an art form, must develop along lines defined by the actualities and limitations of the photographic medium, and must always remain independent of ideological conventions of art and aesthetics that are reminiscent of a period and culture antedating the growth of the medium itself.
Our exhibition and accompanying statement created considerable attention and invigorating discussion, much of it negative. The de Young Museum received many letters of protest, mostly from artists and gallery people, complaining that valuable space at a public museum had been given to photography which was not Art! Concerned, Rollins requested the opinion of the board of trustees of the museum, who supported him by saying, “You are our director; if you think exhibits of photography are appropriate for the museum, by all means present them.” Rollins telephoned me to describe the meeting and his great relief at its outcome. I have wondered what might have been the effect on the progress of West Coast photography if the Group f/64 exhibit had been rejected by the de Young.
Who were these pictorialists (we called them the fuzzy-wuzzies) that Group f/64 so strongly reacted against? At this time their champion was a Los Angeles photographer, William Mortensen. His photographs were of models suggesting classic and Renaissance characters in historical and allegorical situations while in various stages of nakedness and period costume. They were just plain awful. He wrote in the respected photographic journal Camera Craft, promoting his “inventive” approach to photographic art and attacking straight photography with articles such as “The Fallacies of Pure Photography.” I answered his charges in what became one of the fiercest verbal battles in photographic history. He was and has remained synonymous with the opposite of everything I believe in and stand for in photography. A few years ago I was not overjoyed to find an important museum showing a major retrospective of my work in their main gallery simultaneously with a Mortensen retrospective on an upper floor. Caveat emptor!
One of my rebuttals to Mortensen was this letter I wrote to him in 1933:
Dear Mr. Mortensen:
The photographic Realists have in no way “self-defined” photography, especially in the contemporary aspects. The basic aspects of photography are so clearly defined in themselves that I am astonished you have so completely missed them. The Realists recognize and respect the merits of a sincere and fully realized Pictorial photograph when we find one. The early work of Stieglitz, Clarence White, Steichen, and others, and of the exponents of the gum process in Europe over thirty years ago—sincere and sensitive productions—are veritable milestones of photographic progress. The art and craft of photography has advanced since those earlier days, and the leader has unquestionably been Alfred Stieglitz, who, for forty years, has anticipated its trends and achievements.
When you say the Purist work consciously avoids any subjective interest you are making a grievous error. The Purist shuns sentimental-subjective connotations that undermine the power and clarity of the real photographic expression. All great art in any medium avoids weak sentimental-subjective conceptions. The objective attitude in no way implies that photography is not emotional. I am surprised that you are not aware that objectivity is only the tool of intense expression.
In photography, I would say that the sincere realist is the creative artist; the non-realist is vague and muddling in his synthetic manipulation of the camera and the subsequent processes. He is guilty of the major crime of Art—bad taste.
Mr. Mortensen, there will be salons of Pure Photography long after your creations are to be found only in collections of Photographia Curiosa. There will be legions of photographers working long after you are forgotten—working to catch such “meaningless” things as the glint of sunlight on stone, the crisp inevitability of machines, the dignity of the human form and face, the grand pageant of the world in intense and infinite aspects. There will be fearless photography of humanity in social change and in heroic adventure. There will be infinitely tender photography of the most intimate aspects of the world—grass covered with dew (as Stieglitz has done), the sea-drift of Gaspé (Paul Strand), the resonance of pure light in shells (Edward Weston), documents of human derelicts (Walker Evans). New horizons will always open before us. How soon photography achieves the position of a great social and aesthetic instrument of expression depends on how soon you and your coworkers o
f shallow vision negotiate oblivion.
Group f/64 held only one other exhibition. In 1933, after my momentous meetings with Stieglitz, I returned to San Francisco determined to create a small gallery that would reflect the aesthetic stance of An American Place and Group f/64 as well. I opened the Ansel Adams Gallery at 166 Geary Street with the first exhibit photographs from Group f/64. I presented shows of superior photographs as well as paintings, sculpture, and prints. After nearly a year, I decided that my added job as gallery director was too exhausting, severely limiting the time I had for my own work. I acquired a partner, Joseph Danysh, and it became the Adams-Danysh Gallery and eventually just the Danysh Gallery.
I recognized Paul Strand as the catalyst who had challenged me to fully commit myself to photography. In three short years, I had progressed far thanks to hard work and the stimuli from my Group f/64 colleagues. After Willard moved to New York to begin a career as a documentary cinematographer, Group f/64 seldom met. Even though we did not continue in any formal sense, the flame lived. I wrote to Strand:
September 12th, 1933
Dear Paul Strand,
You may remember me and you may not. I had a few days with you and your wife and O’Keeffe at Mabel’s in Taos. We motored down to Santa Fe together and shot at tin cans with a revolver on the way. If the last mentioned event has slipped your mind, perhaps you will recall that we had a wonderful morning with Marin at Taos.
I have been working hard with the camera since that time.
… I have opened a small gallery.… I would like to have a show of your photographs—25 to 40 things, I do not know your attitude towards exhibits, but I can assure you there is enough interest in photography in San Francisco to provide a large and grateful attendance to a Strand show. Within eight days about 500 people have come to the f/64 show and I am gratified that most of them evidenced a real interest and understanding in what the group is trying to do. A show of your things in the spring would be an event of major importance here.