Subscribe to our blog to follow photography news and insight 

Yesterday I videoed Matthew Adams, Ansel’s grandson and the President of the Ansel Adams Gallery, to get his take on the recent hullabalou over a Fresno man claiming he has found long lost negatives of his grandfather’s.  Matthew is skeptical that they are the real deal and told me several reasons why this claim is fishy:

1. The handwriting  doesn’t match.  The finder has claimed that the handwriting is Matthew’s grandmother Virginia’s, but it doesn’t really match up with hers. He showed me examples her her writing and what was claimed to be hers on the negative sleeves.  Sure enough, key points like the flourish on her letters, and how she capitalized them don’t match.

2. But the even bigger point were misspellings. These were of well known Yosemite landmarks, where she grew up. For example the alleged sample spells “Bridal Vail Falls” instead of the correct spelling of “Veil.” Other examples can be seen in this photo “Monteray” instead of Monterey, “Neveada” instead of Nevada, well, you get the idea. There were at least a half a dozen such examples, attributed to Virginia, a very literate  woman who knew these places well.  This to me was the biggest point that disproved the “find.”

3. Doesn’t match Ansel’s numbering. Ansel had an exact numbering system, which was 2 letters + two digits,  which the alleged negatives don’t follow, as you can see there  are 4 digits on the left. This is not consistent with Ansel’s exact approach to everything he did.

4. No exposure notes. Ansel kept meticulous notes of his exposures (we know them as metadata today) but none exist for these 61 negatives. Again, doesn’t fit.

5. How could Ansel just lose his negatives? After his Yosemite Fire of 1938 where he lost 5,000 negatives, Ansel kept them in a bank vault where he only took them out to print, or later he put them in a fireproof bunker.  How would he then “lose track” of 61 negatives? Again, it doesn’t add up.

Yesterday a woman said that she recognized the prints as being from her “Uncle Earl” in Fresno! She provided them to Scott Nichols a San Francisco art gallery owner and Ansel Adam expert. He took a look at Uncle Earl’s photographs and said the ones purchased at a garage sale held a striking resemblance. He specifically analyzed one of a pine tree on Sentinel Dome and said because of the placement of the camera and the shadows of the tree, he think the slide was taken by Earl Brooks.

There you have it folks, draw your own conclusions, I have. We should have our video up soon, so you can see the details. The final point is that of being poached as an artist, which this rings of. Ansel worked his whole life to produce his caliber of his images and for someone to swoop them up at a garage sale for $45, and then claim they are now worth $200,000,000 strikes pretty hard against an artist’s rights

Subscribe to our blog to follow this and other photography news and insight

Leonard Nimoy is most widely known as the actor who played Spock in Star Trek, but the man himself is also an accomplished director, poet, musician and photographer. And after nearly 60 years honing his craft, his first solo photography show at a major museum opens this week.

Beginning August 1st, Nimoy’s “Secret Selves” will be on display at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA). With 26 color photographs, half of them life-size, the exhibit contains portraits of people in their various secret identities, an idea that Nimoy describes as an attempt to explore the lost or hidden self.

As Nimoy explains it, the genesis of the exhibit arose from his discovery of an ancient Greek tale about the origin of humanity, one that supposed that every man and woman once was attached to another, and that once separated we began searching for our other half.

“I was struck by that idea, that many of us have another side to us that we are not in touch with, or that we do not get a chance to explore or present,” Nimoy has said. “We present a certain aspect of ourselves, but there are other unexplored, or hidden, or lost parts to ourselves.”

To convey this feeling into his photographs, Nimoy gathered 100 volunteers from the local community — artists, lawyers, doctors, business owners — and asked them “Who do you think you are?” Each of them then came up with alternate identities and brought their own clothes and props, and Nimoy photographed them.

Nimoy, 79, has been taking pictures since he was 13 years old. He studied photography at UCLA before making it big in Hollywood, and now, after appearing in dozens of films and television shows, he has retired from acting in order to work with his camera full time.

Nimoy’s “Secret Selves” will debut at the MASS MoCa on Sunday, August 1st.

  Is it real or is it Memorex? Ah jeeze most readers won’t remember this famous line, so let’s translate: are these glass plates really Ansel’s or is it the same cow crap that he stepped over on his way to capturing one of his images?

I  just talked with Matthew Adams, Ansel’s grandson who runs the Ansel Adams Gallery. He’s  up to his ears over over this whole fuss and the short answer is, yep it’s the stuff on the bottom of his shoes from the southern end of a bull.

His long answer is quoted below. But stay tuned folks we’re going to be providing video evidence of the points Matthew talks about… meanwhile check out the real McCoy watch our video with Ansel’s son Michael.  

I was provided access in November 2009 to the evidence that the “Norsigian Team” had accumulated. No further evidence has been presented, and my comments are based on the information provided at the time and not updated.

Negative Sleeves –
The negative sleeves are manila envelopes with a stamp to organize handwritten information as:
No_
Name_
Remarks_

Each sleeve is numbered with a 4 digit number, starting with “8”, and a title in the “Name” field. The title is suggested to be in the hand of Virginia Best Adams, Ansel’s wife (married 1928). The dates of the any glass plate negatives pre-date the marriage, meaning that the sleeves would have been new after 1928. The supposition presented is that the negatives were rescued from Ansel’s darkroom fire of 1937, sleeved and marked at that time. Ansel’s negative numbering system usually referenced glass plate negatives as “GP”. “1-GP-##” would mean 8×10 glass plate image number ##. 1937 is certainly after Ansel started using this negative numbering system, and these examples are inconsistent with that schema.

I am not aware if any carbon dating of the negative sleeves has been done. Presumably it would be possible, and might provide scientific evidence of the date of the sleeves and possibly the date of the marking.

Handwriting – The handwriting of the negative number does not match the handwriting of the title. The handwriting of the titles has been identified by Mr. Norsigian’s team as belonging to Virginia Best Adams. The expert, Michael Nattenburg, used samples from 1927, 1929, and 1950. My opinion, without expertise but familiarity only with her handwriting of a later date, is that it does not belong to Virginia. I have viewed the sample handwriting from the 1920s and subject handwriting, and found differences that I would consider significant.

more….

   © Patrick Roddie 2009

I recently interviewed well-known Burning Man photographer Patrick Roddie on Advancing Your Photography. Roddie is a self-taught photographer and he shares some great tips for portrait photography that he’s learned while shooting his Burning Man photos for the past 13 years.

Patrick doesn’t follow a strict checklist of techniques when it comes to photographing people. Instead, he focuses on connecting with people and capturing the moment. You’ll see examples of how he does this in our show, along with his stunning results.

He told me he first learned photography by taking pictures of “stuff,” and wasn’t sure how to approach and take pictures of people, he was a bit timid in fact.  When he started shooting at Burning Man he said his photography took a radical shift and he overcame his fear of capturing intimate and candid photographs. As a point of advice, he said if you are yourself and trust yourself, capturing portraits are much easier than you may think.

Roddie approaches every portrait by maintaining eye contact with his subject as he frames the photo in his mind and raises his camera to quickly take the shot. If you worry too much about lenses or F-Stops, you might miss the moment. But on the other hand he describes how you have to have your equipment always on the ready, like an emergency kit—don’t get caught off guard.

Tune in to AYP and watch the show. Then tell me what you learned and attach a sample of your own candids or get out and capture your own images and send them along!

Photo copyright Luis Lamar.

Famed underwater photographer Wesley Skiles, a pioneering cave-diver, explorer and conservationist, died Wednesday while on assignment for National Geographic. He was 52.

Skiles was involved in a diving accident off the coast of eastern Florida, the details of which are still under investigation. Underwater at the time, he signaled to other divers that he was ascending to get more film for his camera. However he never returned to the surface. Colleagues found him on the ocean floor and rushed him to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach. He was pronounced dead shortly after.

Known as a pioneer in underwater photography and film making, Skiles was renowned for his enthusiasm and daring in seeking out remote underwater caverns where no one had ever filmed before. He produced over 100 films for television, and was noted for his passion for conservation education. Skiles’ amazing photo of the blue caves in the Bahamas Islands is on the cover of the current issue of National Geographic.

“Wes was a true explorer in every sense and a wonderful spirit,” said Chris Johns, National Geographic’s editor in chief. “He set a standard for underwater photography, cinematography and exploration that is unsurpassed. It was an honor to work with him, and he will be deeply missed.”

Here’s a contest, a chance to win a SanDisk card: I have two questions for you: One, what makes this image so strong for you? It was shot almost 65 years ago, yet it resonates with today’s viewers, who may have had grandparents around at the time it was taken. Really, I’m very curious to know what hits you when you see it?  For the back story of this photograph see the end of this post. *

Now two, this takes a bit of work on your end, but not too hard: Who can do a reenactment of it, even have two friends be your models, unless you are lucky enough to find an actual sailor and nurse! Shoot it on any camera (I said any, that includes your iPhone, Polaroid, Holga–whatever you’ve got.) Attach it to a comment below (or you can tweet @marcsilbershow and include the link to this post) and we’ll see who comes up with the best shot and I’ll send SanDisk card to the winner–how’s that?

© Alfred Eisenstaedt 1945

Contest Details:

Answer why you think this so powerful, or what it conveys to you. You can do that now.

Shoot a reenactment of this photograph (don’t worry about matching their wardrobe) with any camera.

Attach it to a comment below or tweet to @marcsilbershow and include the link to this post

Deadline is 7/31. Winner will be chosen by 8/8. Ok, let’s’ see what you’ve got!

*As Eisenstaedt describes it in his autobiography: “I was walking through the crowds on V-J Day, looking for pictures. I noticed a sailor coming my way. He was grabbing every female he could find and kissing them all — young girls and old ladies alike. Then I noticed the nurse, standing in that enormous crowd. I focused on her, and just as I’d hoped, the sailor came along, grabbed the nurse, and bent down to kiss her.”

An eroding glacier in the Himalayas. Photo Copyright David Breashears, GlacierWorks.

Looking at the magnificent Rongbuk glacier today, it’s hard to see anything disconcerting. But compared to photographs of the same spot taken 90 years ago, it’s obvious that a massive amount of ice has disappeared. Mountaineer and photographer David Breashears is determined to document this “alarming” loss in a new series of photos from the highest point in the world.

Commissioned by the Asia Society (AS), a team of scientists, conservationists and photographers traveled to Tibet to capture images of the glaciers surrounding Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on Earth.

The team used as their guide photographs captured by British climber George Mallory in 1921, images taken in the exact same spots nearly 90 years ago. What they reveal, says the AS, is “a startling truth: the ice of the Himalayas is disappearing.”

A new exhibit at the Asia Society in Manhattan, dubbed “Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya,” shows the melting trend as well as Breashears painstaking retracing of Mallory’s photographic expedition. Breashears, who directed the Imax film “Everest,” says the particularly difficult part of the project was figuring out how to get to the exact locations where Mallory took the photographs.

“I’ve climbed Everest five times, and I would rather do that again than reach some of these photo points,” Breashears told the New York Times. In one instance, he and his team spent 19 days (having to return to base camp three out of four times) trying to get one perfect shot.

“Climbers, they choose good routes,” he said. “A photographer chooses a position; a vantage point.”

Also in the AS exhibit is a collection of work from famed landscape photographer Vittorio Sella, who made a career out of photographing the most famous mountains in the world.

The show runs through August 15.

John Lennon Memorial, NYC, iPhone

Do you ever hit a “dry spell” in your photography? Honest answer, of course.

What’s your source of inspiration to jump start your creative juices?

We shot a video with Joe Holmes yesterday (you’ll see it next week), we had just unplugged our mics and our crew was putting away the equipment, when Joe started to tell the story of seeing the Beatles at their last live concert at Candlestick Park, San Francisco 1966. BTW, this often happens, when the cameras are off, we get some of our best stuff (happened when Annie Leibovitz and I found ourselves walking alone through her exhibit in SF a few years ago)— I was determined not to let another good one get away, so I asked Matt to put our shoot back together so we could capture Joe’s story.

He said that a major source of his inspiration for his photography came from John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I asked how it was that music inspired his images, he exclaimed, “because it’s art!” He told the story of being at that last concert with the Beatles and hearing the whole stadium screaming, but not just the “chicks,” everyone was, and it was so infectious that he found himself joining in and screaming in wild enthusiasm. The enthusiastic connection to sound waves propelled him into orbit as an artist with light waves.

This got me to thinking about the various ways photographers have been inspired and pulled themselves out of the doldrums.  For me it helps to look at other’s work, not to copy, but to get their take on life and see possibilities that I hadn’t viewed before. But the really big inspiration is going to new lands and new spaces, or simply getting into action to hit that magical point of switching on my creative eye, getting in the zone.

Once I was asked by the curator at Nepenthe in Big Sur, where I was showing my work, for new images of the Big Sur coastline. I had gone surfing at my favorite (but secret) spot in Big Sur, in fact I surfed my brains out, then drove north to the beginning of that most dramatic coastline on the planet, and captured images from every vantage point traveling south. The intensity of “dancing” with the ocean, called surfing, had certainly propelled me in the zone and gave me a jolt of creative energy—just like Joe’s Beatle experience.

I’d like to hear what you’ve done to kick start your inspiration. And while you’re at it, if you don’t mind, attach an image that resulted…

Marissa, Crude Awakening. Photo © Jane Fulton Alt.

Like most Americans, photographer Jane Fulton Alt is disturbed by the extreme amounts of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the broken BP pipeline. In her new collection, Crude Awakening, the artist expresses her sadness with a series of oil-slicked swimmers who appear as if they’ve just waded out of the muck.

As Fulton herself explains, “Living on the shores of Lake Michigan, I am acutely aware of the disastrous toll the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has taken on all forms of life, especially as our beaches opened to the 2010 swimming season. This environmental, social and economic catastrophe highlights a much larger problem that has inflicted untold suffering as we exploit the earth’s resources worldwide.”

Fulton’s images feature haunting profiles of oil-covered beach-goers peering into the camera, their faces graven and helpless as if reflecting the world’s current feelings of frustration towards one of the worst environmental disasters in American history — A girl emerges from the water with oil-slicked hair; A family, streaked in the dark goo, stands forlorn on the beach; A pregnant woman stares angrily while a man next to her cradles a young boy.

Some have commented that Fulton’s shoot is nowhere near the actual spill in the Gulf, and therefore it is disingenuous and inauthentic. But Fulton says this disaster is being felt no matter where you live.

“We are all responsible for leading lives that create demand for unsustainable energy,” she says on her website. “We are also all responsible for the solution and we must work together to protect the balance of life.”

What do you think? Do Fulton’s images seem inauthentic now that you know they were taken in Lake Michigan and not on the actual oily beaches of the Gulf? Or do you find them interesting regardless?

Somali refugees board a smuggler’s boat headed to Yemen. Only 11 would survive. Photo: © Alixandra Fazzina

One of the world’s most prestigious peace prizes has been awarded for the first time to a photojournalist. Photographer Alixandra Fazzina has been named the winner of the United Nation’s annual Nansen Refugee Award for her work documenting refugees and victims of war.

“Alixandra Fazzina stands out as a fearless humanitarian who achieves something remarkable by unearthing and so vividly portraying individual stories of uprooted people,” said Antonio Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

With photographs that capture everything from the effects of land mines in Kosovo, child-soldiers in Uganda and refugees in Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Fazzina’s work has brought the images of war to the front pages of papers like Time, the New York Times and The Guardian.

Her dedication to uncovering the plights of victims around the world who don’t necessarily get mainstream coverage deserves to be recognized, the international human rights organization said in a statement.

“For two years in Somalia she received no pay and spent weeks and months on end with people on the run, following them and feeling so passionate about bringing these untold stories to the rest of the world,” a UNHCR spokeswoman said.

Fazzina is the first journalist, and the first photographer, to win the award since it was created in 1954. She will be granted $100,000 which she can donate to the cause of her choice. Fazzina’s award-winning photographs are collected in the upcoming book “A Million Shillings, Escape from Somalia,” which follows the dangerous escape of Somalian refugees to Yemen via a network of smugglers.

You can read more about Fazzina and her work by visiting the UNHCR website. And after you see some of her photographs, let us know what you think. How can photographers like Fazzina help change the world?

A series of photographs from Richard Avedon, one of the most acclaimed American photographers of the 20th century, is set to head for auction in Paris this fall as part of a sale that some experts believe could net $6 million.

“Dovima with Elephants” (at left), arguably Avedon’s most iconic image, is among the photographs to be put on the block. The 2.25 meter by 1.5 meter print, of a supermodel posing angelically between elephants on a hot summer day at the Cirque d-hiver in Paris in 1955, hung over the entrance to Avedon’s studio in New York City for over 20 years. The image itself could fetch up to $700,000.

The Avedon collection, the largest of its kind, is being put up by the Avedon Foundation, which seeks to promote and maintain the legendary photographer’s legacy.

Avedon, who died in 2004 at the age of 81, made his mark in both the worlds of fashion photography and portraiture. His legacy includes celebrated campaigns for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, iconic pictures of models like Twiggy and Marilyn Monroe, album covers, Presidential portraits, as well as coverage of the fall of the Berlin wall and the Civil Rights Movement.

“Richard Avedon is by any standards a towering figure in the story of photography,” said Philippe Garner, head of 20th-century decorative arts and photographs at Christie’s auction house. “His work has power, authority and intensity, very distinctive signature.”

So what sort of effect does Richard Avedon’s work have on you? And what would you pay to get your hands on a genuine Avedon print?