Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

Ansel Adams was a great photographer, impacting generations of people. He inspired me decades ago when I was in college at RIT and he had shows at the George Eastman House (museum). And, I saw him several times at the RIT campus.

He is famous for his landscape photos. But, you are short changing yourself and him if you don't look at more of his work. In addition to the link below, search for his pictures at the National Archives. You will see close ups of leaves and the texture of growing moss on rocks, etc. There are pictures of people, buildings and more natural parts of his life, recorded for posperity.

Here is a link to inspiring quotes from Ansel. Take them to mind, please. Find opportunities to inspire others to grow and explore themselves through their photography. You will have chances to give an encouraging and inspirational comment to the photos and questions posted by other UHH users. Then watch to see which posting UHH members have taken your words and encouragement to grow their vision, their creativity, their photography.

https://shuttermuse.com/42-inspirational-ansel-adams-quotes-photography/

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

I have a print of his "Rose on Driftwood" on my wall, also "Leaves, Mt Rainer"*. I got them at the LA Art Museum decades ago.
And many people don't realize he has a large body of color images also, often the same subjects of some of his B&W images. And he used various 35mm, 120/220 and 4x5 cameras in addition to his famous 8x10 work. For many years until he became more successful in sales of "his work" to pay the bills he did commercial photography for companies like Kodak and Standard Oil.

I did get to attend one of his appearances at UCLA back in the 70's. A camera store I haunted the year I taught basic photography gave me a ticket from the bunch they got to hand out to educators and customers.

*It is actually a portrait orientated image but due to space on that wall it is up in landscape. I really need to redo that wall and correct it.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

Hi, Ansel was willing to try new things and new technology. I understand that he was not very happy with 35mm slides for quality, sharpness and tonal range/false colors. I know that he used a Hasselblad 120 camera for a series of photos. I'm sure that he would have embraced the technology of today in his photography, if he was still here with us.

We all can go to the National Archives website and search on Ansel's name to bring up the images they have stored there. All of them can be downloaded online.

Oops. Meant to say posterity, not prosperity in the original post.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Some where I read that he once speculated about digital photography in the future once the quality went up and the size of the gear went down(first digital image was in the early 50's and involved huge machines and computers). The first "digital camera" prototype from Kodak in 1975 was the size of a desktop printer and weighed almost 9 lbs. It did B&W only and needed a special computer and screen to see the images. The first commercial digital camera from Fuji was released in 1989, five years after AA passed.

(Download)

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

So glad the 'toys' have gotten smaller. I saw the potential of digital technology replacing silver halide in the late 70-s and early 80-s. And, I changed career paths to computers and business systems after computerizing 3 of my photo industry companies.

Impossible to speculate what Ansel would have done with digital technology. I bet it would have been great and inspiring, like the majority of his career work.

medphotog Loc: Witness protection land

Hey me too. When were you at Brick City? I can remember passing "Moonrise" many times. Campus has changed dramatically since the 70's (I haven't been back, just see pictures) Oh, and BTW, they've started the phone campaign for donations. I got the call last night.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

Med, I pre-date you. I spent freshman year at the downtown campus where freshman housing was an old hotel. When Brick City was ready for my soph year, housing was not. And I lived off campus for the next 3 years.

Won't get into the how and why of things that happened next. But, this was the time of the Vietnam "Tee Offensive" with a major buildup of US troops. - The Alum Assn. knows why I'm unhappy and I get no phone calls for $$$.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

I think spell check failed me. I meant 'Tet Offensive", not "Tee." Tens and then hundreds of thousands of young Americans were rushed through basic training and sent to Vietnam.

TonyBot

In the late 60s-early 70s I worked in a camera store, and we often talked about a "way to put pictures on a tape" with an SLR. Video was just starting to come out then, with HUGE cameras and Sony BETA as the leaders. Nobody believed it really possible, or if it was, it would just be a fad. Kodak, even though they developed the first real digital camera, felt the same way. 'Nuf said about that.

But, when 'Shutterbug Magazine' was tabloid sized, I remember their forecast that "an 8 megapixel sensor, if one could be made, would equal in definition and quality almost any hand-holdable lens/film combo ever made. And a 12 megapixel sensor, if one was even possible, would be more than anyone would ever want, let alone need."

Am I happy they were wrong!

cbtsam Loc: Monkton, MD

Nice source; thanks. Odd that #13 & #33 are identical.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

My unit landed at Qui Nhon the first week of December '66, except for leaves I was there until Jan '69 (extended twice). Tet saw a lot of stuff change and a lot of new people and units. We even got a National Guard post office unit some of whom filed a Federal Law Suit over being sent to Nam.

Because our unit had some outposts we manned and regular patrol routes on TDY with our support group personnel (all of them saw some action during TET and after) and the actions around our various unit basecamps our Colonel and others tried to get us the CIB with the argument that everyone was a basic rifleman in addition to our MOS. Our Intel Officer was a Marine in WWII and came up with that argument. It got stamped and approved all the way to the states where we heard someone in the Pentagon killed it because we were not technically infantry.

I was just packing up to go on a week's outpost duty when our Cartographer/Draftsman came out and asked to go so he could see if they followed his blueprints for the new bunkers and defenses on the pass the outpost guarded. He went and three days later he was one of the first killed on TET as that outpost was the first place hit around Qui Nhon. Three dead and three wounded out of 8 guys at the bunker, all from our HQ company or attachments. Another friend got a medal for basically nearly wiping out the squad that hit their bunker. He said he didn't even remember most of it. He saw figures running, one firing an RPG into the bunker and he started shooting, then a satchel charge blew the bunker to hell and blew him 5 meters up the mountain side. Yet when he came back to consciousness he had three empty mags, one partly empty in his M-14, three bodies in front of him and several blood trails where others were hauled away. They never made it to the next bunker along the pass, one of our commo guys (6'4" lumberjack from Minnesota) grabbed an M-60, jumped on top of a bunker for a clear field of fire and using it like a rifle he actually did wipe out a whole squad+ before a senior NCO grabbed his leg and jerked him off the bunker into cover.
So, a medal each but no CIB because they were a mechanic and a commo lineman.

Equus Loc: Puget Sound

I think it was '76 I happened to be in SF and there was an Adams retrospective. Needless to say I was blown away with many of the BW images that they were showing. Then in a small section was a collection of polaroids in color from the late 1930's that he had done. I don't know why but what surprised me was a set of nudes. Somehow it never occurred to me that he did a full range of photography. It was eye opening at the time.

richard74account

A few years ago I heard Steve Sasson the co-inventor of that prototype digital camera make a quip in
Rochester, N.Y. about his invention that it didn't come with a neckstrap. Also, again some time ago in a photo
magazine article, Ansel Adams acknowledged the high resolution of scanners that were used in the printing
industry.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

No disrespect meant toward our military. My grandfather was gassed in the trenches of France as part of his service. My step father flew missions over Italy and Germany as part of a bomber crew.

But, I was born with back problems and excused from middle school and high school phys ed. When I changed majors at RIT, no one ever told me that I was short of 3 credit hours needed to keep my student deferment. So, in my soph year, I was suddenly re-classified 1A and told to report to the induction center in Buffalo for a full physical. I knew I would not pass a physical. And, I was taking meds daily for my back/neck/etc. I finally needed to speak with the Induction Center commander (no one would look at my Xrays - too many people bringing in their own fake ones!). I told him that I wouldn't make it thru boot camp, let alone carrying a backpack and rifle (didn't want to go with a camera instead of a gun in a combat zone). I mentioned that I would be on sick call each AM and need medications. And I could be permanently crippled by the physical demands of basic training. After they took their own Xrays, it was obvious I was not refusing my national service other than physical condition grounds.

It took some time, but I received a 1F or something like that - seems like if the Russians landed on the USA beaches, they would call up the elder/elderly, the disabled and the children to fight at our coastlines. Glad it never went that far. In RIT, I finished a 4 year program in 3 years and a heavily loaded 16 credit hour summer of 1969.

hrblaine

>In RIT, I finished a 4 year program in 3 years and a heavily loaded 16 credit hour summer of 1969.

I finished my BA at Ohio State in 9 years with 3 out for army service, a couple of them in Korea. I'll admit that I hanged majors a few times; that cost me time.
My GI Bill ran out my first year in law school. Had to borrow the tuition for the next two years. Yale was expensive, couldn't earn enough in the Summer to pay that tuition, even in the early '60s. IIRC, it was $1500.00/year. Harry