Ansel Adams

by Ansel Adams

  We discussed the layout at great length: a loaf of bread on a breadboard with several slices cut and a shining knife laying across the board. The background was to be high gray, with a tablecloth of dark gray, both provided by the client.

  The assembly process began. The raisin bread was placed on the board and sliced, with all the crumbs carefully removed. The composition was approved on the camera’s ground glass. Then, the raisin bread was replaced by a loaf of sandwich bread with its white, smooth, minimal-textured facade. This surprising situation was explained when I observed the home economist and the art director carefully poking little holes with tweezers into the sandwich bread face and slices, extracting raisins from the raisin bread one by one and, with surgical precision, inserting them into the sandwich bread. When this arduous task was accomplished, the sandwich bread surfaces were carefully painted with a brownish liquid. Voilà! Brown raisin bread with gleaming raisins but with no typical raisin bread texture. Everyone who has eaten raisin bread knows that the raisins produce steam when the bread is baked, and this steam produces the distinctive texture of the loaf. But no, the rough texture was not appetizing. “Let us proceed with the picture before the raisins lose their shine.”

  Though I could hardly keep from laughing, I made the photographs with quite a few variations of light intensity in relation to the background and a few lens changes. The pictures turned out well technically, the clients were pleased, and I was generously paid, including the leftover, delicious loaves of both raisin and sandwich bread. Most astonishing was that the picture was to be reproduced in an advertisement in a national bakers’ journal, and any baker would know that the texture of this idealized loaf was impossible. Who was fooling whom?

  I found working in the field a great contrast and relief to the necessary studio work. However, as in the studio, I found coping with problems to be a constant. Fortune magazine asked me to make a survey of Los Angeles in about 1945. They wanted pictures of the exotic indigenous architecture such as the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood. There were many such awful examples around Los Angeles, and I drove hundreds of miles in pursuit of them. I was completely frustrated by a continuous drizzle; no shaft of southern California sun ever touched the difficult scene. The deadline was in three short weeks.

  I phoned Fortune and said, “Conditions are awful, time is wasting, what do you want me to do?”

  They replied, “Just keep making pictures and put the drinks on the expense account.”

  Early every morning I drove out onto the wet streets, trying my best to find and capture the architectural obscenities that loomed through the drizzle; but even these objects needed sunlight. I had supper at dusk, then a two-hour drive to the airport to ship any exposures to New York. Fortune wanted to see any results as soon as possible.

  Three days before the deadline I called in and said, “What now? I am not happy with my work.”

  They replied, “We do not have enough for the story, but it’s not your fault. Better luck next time! Send in your bill right away and don’t forget to add the drinks. You deserve them!” I always appreciated Fortune as a client.

  When working in the field, professional assignments can be very difficult, because the requirements of the client can dominate personal interpretation. Architectural photography may be a case in point. Fine architecture almost makes its own pictures. However, with inferior architecture, the architect or contractor wants it to be enhanced by photography. If the photographer aids and abets obvious exaggeration or concealment, he is guilty of deceit. Too often this is not realized until the job is finished and his work published—then comes creeping the painful question, “Why did I do this assignment?” Usually the answer is, “Well, that’s business. I have to make a living and compete with other photographers. Did my work harm anyone?” The long view is, of course, that to compromise truth harms everyone. I admit doing a lot of professional work that disturbed my aesthetic integrity; none was intentionally dishonest.

  One axiom I discovered proved to be of great value: the client seldom, if ever, knows exactly what he wants from the photographer. However, his pride does not allow him to give any such ridiculous impression. The desire and need for interpretative work is usually unformed and the client often looks to the professional for guidance in this respect.

  A case in point was my assignment to photograph the Mark Hopkins Hotel. Before San Francisco was “Manhattanized,” the Mark really dominated the skyline. The owner’s instructions to me were to “make the hotel tower rise high above everything and in the corner have a seagull as big as hell.” I chose a telephoto lens and set my 8xio view camera and tripod in the center of the lower California Street traffic. I lived through it without being run over, he liked the picture, and, happily, we both forgot all about the seagull.

  Working on commercial projects with very short deadlines, I quickly found an assistant to be absolutely necessary. Over the years I have had numerous photographic assistants. I learned that there is a great difference between having a person work for you or with you—the latter being my preference. I have been blessed to work with many fine, young photographers.

  Often an assistant has gotten me out of seemingly unsolvable situations. I recall one assignment from Fortune on the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. It was requested that I do some portraits of the executives, among them the president, James B. Black. Mr. Black was a dignified, reserved gentleman and cooperated as best he could, but he was incredibly stiff before the camera and I was concerned. My assistant Ron Partridge was helping with the setup and lights. I asked him to talk with Mr. Black, say anything to relax his masklike expression.

  The pixyish Ron, dressed in old dungarees, sat crosslegged on the floor in front of Black’s desk and said, “Mr. Black, I would like to work for your company.”

  A startled Mr. Black, half smiling, replied, “That is quite interesting; what would you like to do?”

  Ron said, with deadpan seriousness, “Mr. Black, I would like to be a vice president.”

  Mr. Black, completely amazed, actually smiled—CLICK!—I had a good journalistic portrait, thanks to Ron.

  As I became better known, I was offered jobs across the country. A major assignment was for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. The first conference about this job was in New York City, with approximately fifteen company and advertising executives.

  The Project: pictures of various employees of the telephone company at their appointed tasks.

  The Subject: employees selected for their contributions to the neighborhoods or towns in which they worked.

  The Message: readers were to see that telephone employees are kind, cheerful, and helpful with their clients’ problems apart from assuring good telephone service.

  The research division had picked out about twenty locations as possibilities, among them a town in northern Indiana, the city of Minneapolis, a suburb of Los Angeles, a small town on the Ohio River, and a village somewhere in Appalachia. Three weeks were allowed for this odyssey. Between travel arrangements and weather delays, the time available for the actual photographing was about two days per subject.

  A cable splicer in Indiana raised ducks for the hunting season; AT&T felt he represented conservation. He was a nice guy and very helpful. I photographed him in a cold underground tunnel through which a myriad of cables passed. He had one cable thoroughly gutted and was joining what seemed to be several dozen strands. All I had to work with were the ordinary ceiling lamps in the tunnel. We gathered several powerful electric torches to supplement the illumination. I made about thirty exposures before I was satisfied I had something that would not show motion. One down, five to go.

  In Minneapolis a young lady who worked with the Yellow Pages was chosen. She and her husband were very active in their church and assorted community charities. She was quite attractive and evidenced enthusiasm, especially for the modeling fee. Because her complexion was rather sallow, I suggested a bit of makeup, something to darken the lips and gi
ve tonal values to the cheeks.

  “Oh NO,” she said. “Our religion does not allow any makeup.”

  I tried to explain that, as this was a black and white photograph, no makeup color would be obvious. Her husband was called in and he was equally obdurate. The prospect looked grim indeed until the manager of the Yellow Pages came on the scene and, with a very serious mien, described how essential it was she cooperate. It was agreed we would make the picture after the other employees left. To help the model he would hire a woman who understood makeup and it would be removed immediately after the pictures were made. The modeling fee was doubled and all seemed serene.

  When a very discreet amount of makeup was applied and I began to work on the picture, she started to weep, asking her husband to assure her she was not committing a sin. Of course, her face became streaked. The husband, doubtful but encouraged toward a little bit of sin by the increased money, persuaded her to be dried, powdered, and made up again.

  I worked until nearly midnight and the pictures turned out better than I had hoped. Our model rushed to the ladies room for removal of the makeup, after which she and her husband vanished from the scene. The local advertising executive, the manager, and I went home for a few welcome bourbons.

  I was in Los Angeles the following night and on the job the next morning in Anaheim. I never saw the telephone employee I was supposed to photograph; on checking with New York I was told that it would be all right just to photograph his children, because they represented the activities he was interested in. They dressed up as wild Indians and turned the modest little home into bedlam. My pictures were lousy. I happily left Los Angeles and exchanged smog for the then-clear San Francisco air.

  The most rewarding situation was in a small town on a remote bank of the Ohio River. The telephone company representative had installed a small water system for the inhabitants; heretofore they had all trekked to the village pump for their water, summer and winter. I arrived the day the project was completed, and my camera witnessed a dear old lady turning on the single cold-water tap in her kitchen sink with an expression of long-awaited satisfaction. Present was the telephone man, bearing a similar expression, plus that of “job well done.”

  The one truly disturbing event on this assignment occurred in a small town in Virginia. The representative employee was a lineman, a technician who checked lines for nitrogen-gas pressure. He was also a valued member of the community, assisting underprivileged people with legal and personal problems. My work with him was delightful, if rather arduous. I was provided with a contraption that elevated me to the level of the pole top from where I could photograph his work in close-up.

  We spent a day touring the countryside to find an appropriate pole in an agreeable setting. The next morning was cloudy. When we reached the site, it began to snow. I did not have a warm coat, but at first I did not notice the cold because of my concentration on the picture. The advertising people who were with me were ecstatic over the weather, “GREAT! It will show how telephone people work in storms to keep the service going!”

  I climbed on the truck, then into the bin, and up I went with clanks and sways and freezing snow. I kept my 35mm camera under my jacket to protect it from the snow; at least it was warm. After every two or three pictures I had to wipe off the lens. When finished, I descended to the relatively warm cab and thawed out. Everybody seemed happy and the pictures were good.

  But in this town I was joined by a regional telephone executive and also the advertising account executive from New York. From the start almost every other utterance was some snide remark about the “Nigras,” and they ogled every black girl. At one point we stopped to investigate a possible location and I saw two black men working on fence repair along the road. They were dressed in rags and had the defeated appearance of physical and mental depression. They stared at us without apparent curiosity.

  One of our party said, rather loudly, “Just look at those goddam lazy Niggers; we’re feeding them for nothing.” I was getting madder and madder but I kept in control.

  I was cheered when the lineman gave me a confident wink and said, “All our employees are not like the bastards we got with us here, thank God.”

  My professional assignments took me to places I otherwise would not have visited and gave me some awareness of the situation of so many citizens of our country. I sadly remember a few hours spent in Savannah, Georgia, awaiting the northbound Seaboard train. I went out for a stroll about town. I noticed a dignified, well-dressed black couple slowing their walk as a miserable little white man, in a soiled shirt and suspenders holding up baggy and greasy pants, strode directly toward them, forcing them off the pavement into the gutter. As he passed I heard him mutter, “Goddam dirty Niggers.” The couple returned to the sidewalk and continued down the street. I honestly wanted to destroy that man, who for me was a symbol of evil. It was frightening to realize he was but one of millions, and his demented spirit still stalks the land and promises disaster. While we have made tremendous gains since then, racism is still very evident in our country, including the quiet and insidious racism that destroys from within.

  In contrast I am thankful that some of my assignments had an abounding humor that was shared by all involved. Life asked me to participate in a story on “Mad Scientists” and selected the Varian brothers of Palo Alto as prime examples. They were remarkable men and, among many achievements, were noted for their invention and development of the Klystron tube, an energy-producing device essential to radar. Sigurd and Russell Varian were both large, charmingly homely men who cheerfully agreed to cooperate. They were not mad, but they had the potential for looking mad, and we attacked the problem with enthusiasm.

  The brothers put together a rather awesome assortment of unrelated parts, such as wave-guides and resonators, and I photographed them standing on each side of this device with expressions of devilish ferocity, intently staring into my lens. It was pure fun and Life was enchanted, but what followed was hilarious, and quite unexpected. On publication, letters poured in from all over the world, addressed to both Life and the Varians. What was this invention? Respected colleagues would discreetly inquire, “If it’s not restricted, my department would like to know what you boys are up to. We are all perplexed and cannot determine what it does. Is it an amplifying microwave detector? We are stumped!”

  The Varians’ replies were as funny as the inquiries: obscure descriptions of impossible creations, set forth with tongue-in-cheek seriousness. When the truth was revealed, the hoax was enjoyed by all—well, not all in fact, as there were some sour comments from dour personalities.

  Another humorous experience took place in 1954 while I was on an assignment for the American Trust Company. They had contracted me to produce a photographic book, to be titled The Pageant of History in Northern California, that they would give to their most valued customers. In making the photographs I traveled all about the northern part of our state. One day I found myself at a large turkey farm. What appeared to be acres of turkeys, crowded together (perhaps with anxiety over the forthcoming Thanksgiving season), seemed to me to present an exciting pattern of heads, extended necks, and restless textures.

  I set up my 5×7-inch Linhof on the metal platform on the top of my car; this gave an extended view over the swarm of birds. I made one exposure, then dropped the film holder on the aluminum flooring. It must have been a startling sound, because all the turkeys extended their necks at about a fifty-five-degree angle and chorused, “Gobble, gobble, gobble!”

  I had a hilarious thought. I raised my right arm in the Hitler salute while shouting, “HEIL!”

  The birds responded by raising their necks, every one of them, and joining in a loud, “Goebbels, Goebbels, Goebbels!!” I did my Hitler imitation several times, enjoying my own performance immensely, then made an effort to continue with my work.

  As I reached around to reset the shutter, I saw, leaning on the fence to my left, an elderly, mustachioed gentleman chewing tobacco. He chewed reflect
ively, staring at me for a while and saying nothing.

  Grasping for some way out of the ridiculous situation of being apprehended in an apparently incomprehensible act, I remarked, “I am photographing turkeys for the American Trust Company.” Not a word, only slow, continual chewing and the glassy stare.

  I continued, “Turkeys are funny critters, aren’t they?” He responded with determined silence, continued chewing, and the same stare.

  I turned to finish my pictures. When I dared look again, he was gone. I noisily gathered together my equipment (to a renewed chorus of “Goebbels”) and climbed off the car, sure that he had gone to the sheriff to report the whereabouts of a Nazi.

  Shortly thereafter, I was approached by a California winery of small reputation that wanted to hire me to produce general advertising pictures as well as a new corporate brochure. They presented an outline of what was wanted and said, “Figure out what this will cost us.” The arithmetic of mileage, materials, etc., was carefully reviewed and what I thought would be a proper percentage for effort included. It totaled, as I recall, four hundred and fifty-eight dollars.

  I mentioned this to an advertising friend and he said it should have been half-again as much and cautioned me, “Be very careful when you go to the confirmation appointment, because they will give you some of their good brandy before lunch to weaken your resistance.” He continued, “I know these people. They always do this and usually succeed in getting a lower fee.” I took his advice seriously; at eleven-thirty A.M. I stopped at a lunch counter and had a double hamburger, drenched with butter, and followed by a glass of milk.

  I arrived at the winery offices precisely at noon. I was greeted with, “Let’s get the business over with first; we can describe the location and other details later. Let’s begin with a sip of our brandy.” We all had an ample slug of quite good brandy.