"Even Ansel Adams Has To Earn A Living" - Ted Orland, 1974"
Photo Book of the Month...
Scenes of Wonder & Curiosity
This is my first of a monthly choice of photo books which I consider are well worth studying... I have several of Ted Orland's prints on my walls and think of him as a true photo-artist. I've chosen to separate "photos" and "artwork" on my weblog title because I consider none of my images to be "Art" with a capital A (maybe by chance two or three are from careful processing and printing). There are now too many photographers on the web offering their images as "art" when all they convey is personal imagery. Ted, on the other hand, makes art most times he selects a negative for printing... each image having some joke, faux-pas, anecdote, quip, wry observation or comment... they simply make you smile, if not burst out laughing. And that's without reading his amusing text... a few entries from his book which follow...
It all seems so long ago now. When I first picked up a camera in the mid-1960's, the worthwhile literature of the art consisted of a single work: Edward Weston's "Daybooks."
Oh, there were others, doubtless, but they remained unpublished or unpublicised, and certainly unknown to me. The same could be said of many photographers, like Diane Arbus or Wynne Bullock, who were producing monumental images for an audience of (with luck) a few friends.
Yes it was, in another sense, a perfectly fine time to plunge into the Art. Everyone was approachable: in those days, being the most famous photographer in the country, plus the proverbial dime, would get you a cup of coffee. Ansel Adams was still trying to sell his "Portfolio IV" it took years to deplete the edition, perhaps because of its high price - nine dollars a print. lmogen Cunningham's were a whopping ten; Brett Weston who inherited his father's frugality and taste for artichokes, may be the only sure example of a photographer who actually lived off Printsales-as-Art in the 1960's.
Knowing nothing of this, I spotted a tiny space-filler in the back pages of "Modern Photography" early in 1966 noting that Ansel Adams (an artist I'd never met) would be conducting a summer photography workshop in Yosemite Valley (a place I'd never seen). Two weeks for $150. Seemed innocent enough. Changed my life.
Next summer I was back again, this time as Ansel's Workshop Assistant - my primary qualification being that since I only had a 35 mm, I could easily enough carry his real camera as well. From there it was just a matter of time: I slowly disengaged from my work as a designer, and in 1971 moved to the Monterey Peninsula to work full-time at Ansel's home.
Working for Ansel brought me into contact with legendary figures like Beaumont Newhall and lmogen Cunningham, while his workshops introduced me to remarkable fellow travellers from my own generation - young photographers like Linda Connor and David Bayles and Sally Mann.
And though I'm a slow learner - my photographs remained straight Adamsonian landscapes for years - this wealth of input inevitably began to yield returns. In early 1973, close friends joined me in forming a group we titled (rather self-consciously) "The Image Continuum," and we laid plans for sharing our ideas and in-progress work with other artists via a self-published Journal. And prophetically, that same summer at the Yosemite Workshop I met an amazing young photographer-writer named Sally Mann, resulting in a friendship - largely postal, since we live at opposite ends of the country - now spanning it's twenty-sixth year. [As of 1988]
It is these letters to Sally (along with a sprinkling for the Journal and other friends) that comprises the text for the book "Scenes of Wonder & Curiosity." Taken together, they encompass a turbulent decade, a time when my own vision was evolving and maturing rapidly, a time when fine art photography finally began reaching an audience beyond one's fellow photographers.
I've tried to remain true to the spirit of those times while paring everything down to book length. I realise that some names appearing in the text will be unfamiliar to you at first, but you'll pick them up from context soon enough (and if you're really curious you can always peek at the biographical noted in the Afterword). Also, you should know there are a few people very special to me - like my own son Jon and my partner Frances - who rarely appear in these pages at all.
All that's just to say that while "Scenes of Wonder & Curiosity" is autobiographical, it is definitely not an autobiography - rather, it's more about the process of being an artist, about the way time and circumstance, event and emotion surround the moment the shutter is opened. I'd like to think of my experiences as providing an affirmation to younger artists that the path they have chosen does lead somewhere, and there are fellow travellers on that path, and that those who are now a few steps further down the path are really no different - perhaps only a bit older. Here are a few extracts...
July 1973
Minor White has been staying here at Ansel's this week while teaching a Friends of Photography Workshop. I still haven't gotten up the courage to talk with him, but I love the excitement he brings as he comes running back from the beach each noontime, barefoot and unshaven and laughing, bearing handfuls of roll film to develop, and leaving Ansel's darkroom festooned with more new negatives than it's seen in years. Better yet, he's even gracious and charming, sporting an often hilarious irreverence toward the "fuzzy-minded mysticism" (his term) that has given him such guru-like status amongst the faithful.
Q: What are followers of Minor White called?
A: minor whites.
Then this afternoon Brett Weston dropped by (accompanied as always by his larger-than-lifesize ego) to join Minor & AA for drinks, and the resulting conversational counterpoint would have impressed J.S.Bach himself! Brett loves to express disdain for AA's overtly scientific approach to art, and after a couple of shots of whiskey he said, "You know, Ansel, dear friend, Dad's whole house and studio cost less to build that your darkroom sink." (True). But soon enough Ansel's Swiftian wit neutralised Brett's barb as he agreeably donned the Mantle of Scientism and intoned with Great Solemnity:
Said Einstein, I have an Equation
Which Newton might find Rabelaisian.
Let V be Virginity, approaching Infinity,
And U be a constant persuasion.
Now if V be inverted
And U be inserted,
The Proof is a Relative, he asserted.
Minor, for his part, talked of opening his workshop session this evening by having everyone sit in a circle and hold hands and chant "OMMMMM... " Now that doesn't seem overly radical, not for California, but when I asked Ansel later whether he planned to attend, he paused, picked his words very carefully, and said, "Minor is one of my closest friends; I've known him for many years; he's a great photographer; he's an inspiring teacher; I'm sure his session will be very enlightening... but I refuse to meditate!!"
Summer 1974
Popular Artiste zat I am, I spend ze day filling print orders... well, trades actually, money not yet being a recognised medium of exchange for my work. Fortunately for the Production Department, however, that oval-shaped pic of the flying person over San Francisco Bay is emerging as the three-penny opera equivalent to "Moonrise, Hernandez - New Mexico, 1941" - I've had six requests for same this month alone! So I took the plunge into decadent giantism by cutting an oval printing template that yields 11 x 14's (my first!), and cranked out a bunch - in trade for which I should eventually receive a Roger Minick print, a Mark Citret print, a Sally Mann print, and a copy of "Edward Weston, Fifty Years." Not bad for an afternoon, viewed that way. (And you know, I don't even remember making the picture - it was one of a hundred hand-held grab-shots I made that day.)
Now today, that's another matter entirely: Whish, squeak, clunk; wait three minutes; un-clunk, squeak, un-swich print from the drymount press. Yes, Man the Hunter has evolved to an era of Division of Labor, working out at that hard leading edge of industrial technology, applying his skill and intellect to controlling the delicate and intricate machinery that makes it possible for... for... tourists to buy expensive souvenirs. I'm told the true test of your fitness for a profession turns upon your ability to enjoy the drudgery it involves, and four hours at the drymount press is enough to leave that issue still more than a bit in doubt for me. Perhaps it's just that counting all those seconds serves as an occasionally morbid reminder that the real cause of death is birth.
February 1975
I was printing a lifetime supply of "Moons & Half Domes" at Ansel's today when I sensed a commotion outside. So I opened the darkroom door and there - blink - stood lmogen Cunningham! Well, I was still half-blinded by the light - but she wasn't.
"Good Heavens!" she exclaimed, "l thought you were dead - you haven't come to visit me since you photographed me in my Eames chair three years ago!" (True.)
Then she added, "Oh yes, I saw your print in that Journal thing Chris Johnson [author of "The Practical Zone System"] gave me. But you know what's wrong with that? It's too precious! You should be out having exhibits and showing your work to the whole world instead of putting it into pretty little boxes - that's too much work!"
Well, it turned out that she was here on assignment from "People Magazine(!)" to photograph Ansel. Of course he immediately set about returning the favour, and together they were a trip - Ansel armed with his electric Hasselblad, and lmogen sporting an ancient twin-lens Rollei.
Her working method was simplicity itself: she would squint at her vintage Weston meter, say, "f/8 looks right - what do you think?" and without pausing for an answer fire off a flurry of hand-held shots. It was Shoot-out at OK Corral and lmogen won hands down. By the time Ansel had unholstered the right camera body (electric), lens (100 mm), finder (prism), film (Plus-X), film-back (N+ dev.), light meter (Pentax spot) and tripod (Bogen), lmogen had already fired off three dozen shots. "Every one of them perfect," she modestly allowed.
lmogen does seem to delight in tweaking Ansel's ego - enough so that I've heard AA comment wryly that she has acetic acid in her veins - and she zinged him with another at lunch. Virginia (Ansel's wife) had outdone herself preparing a wonderful feast (all the more appealing to me since my budget hasn't allowed for lunches since the beginning of the year); better yet, our ranks had grown with the unexpected arrival of pianist Cristoph Eschenbach, who was in Monterey to give a private recital. So Ansel, surrounded by friends and family and fine food, was in a buoyantly expansive mood, and pretty soon commandeered everyone's attention with an animated description of his darkroom techniques. Well, lmogen remained uncharacteristically silent for a long time as Ansel expounded on filmbase fog and double hypo baths and selenium toner and the like, but the moment he hit the word Dektol she stopped him cold in mid-sentence.
"Dektol!" she said. "Oh yes, I remember when that formula first came out. That was in six. Then, about nineteen-twelve, they began selling it pre-packaged..."
Well, I'll tell you, it slowed down the conversation real fast to realise we were talking with someone who's been photographing for more than half the time that's passed since the medium was invented...
Summer 1975
Not everyone maintains quite the reverence for history I do. I was over at Brett's yesterday for a couple of hours of beer and talk, mostly just for the pleasure of listening to his reminiscences about people he has known seemingly forever.
Like lmogen: he's known her for FIFTY-TWO years, since he was eight years old. "And she was just as homely then as she is now!" he graciously notes.
Or Frederick Sommer. "He and dad [Edward Weston] were great friends. When dad died I inherited a big pile of Sommer's prints" - indicating about a 3-inch stack with his fingers - "And you know what I did with them, Ted Boy? I tossed them out - sickest crap I ever saw in my life!"
But you know, I really do love Brett - there's a wonderful genuineness underlying even his wildest posturing. Like Sommer or Chappell or Bohn or Atget, he's one of Peck's Bad Boys of Photography: he ignored the critics, went his own direction, did exactly what he wanted - and did it so well the art world was eventually forced to circle back to admit him on his own terms.
For myself, perhaps I'd do best to stick just to reminiscences, period, considering the disasters attendant to my last outing with a camera. It was my first pass at nude photography, and with cool professional unruffled aplomb I proceeded to a) shoot a dozen spectacular pictures... all on the same sheet of film, and b) take another dozen totally blank frames by cleverly setting the mirror lock-up button on my Mamiya such that I was really only flipping up the mirror each time I "took a picture." T. Orland, Professional Photographer!
11:28:50 PM 
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