Monday January 02, 2006

With some trepidation I visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston last week-end to view the Ansel Adams exhibit. Strangely, I think my hesitation stemmed mainly from the fact that his work is so popular--so popular that it seemed overrated given what I'd seen in the past in photography books or as posters on random walls over the years.

But go we did. My wife and I visited the museum on the afternoon of December 31st before meeting friends for a New Year's dinner in Boston.

The exhibit included roughly 100 photos drawn from the Lane Collection with representative pieces from the 1920s through the 1970s, many of which are rarely shown. I didn't care at all for his early work which was done in a then-popular soft focus style and printed on a creamy colored, textured paper. After about 30 of these prints I was beginning to regret attending.

That all changed when I got to his later work in which he began to embrace the small aperature, large-format, tack-sharp approach to landscape photography that he's most known for. I had seen many of these images before, but never like this. The clarity and resolution of these prints was absolutely mind-blowing. I suppose it's to be expected when the shots are taken with an 8x10 view camera, but I'd never seen it in person before. Early 20th century HD. In fact, the first time I saw HD video (at, of all places, the Naval Research Laboratory) I had a similar take-your-breath-away reaction. At the time, I felt as though I was looking through a window at a real, three-dimensional scene beyond the CRT glass. It was amazingly realistic. Same thing here.

There were two photos in particular that literally stopped me in my tracks. I think the first photo was titled Rain. It shows Bridal Veil Falls and El Capitan in a distant clearing mist after a rain with a large evergreen sprig in the immediate foreground. Sparkling drops of water are clearly visible on the evergreen needles while the entire scene to the distant falls is also rendered in exquisite detail. This image was chosen for the cover of the exhibition catalogue which was on sale in the gift shop. I was so disappointed because that rendition captured none of what made the high-resolution print captivating--it was if the life had been drained out of it.

The other photo depicted the Snake River winding into the foreground, silvery in the slanting sun with the Grand Tetons rising in the background. The National Archives has a set of Adams' photos available on their website, including one shot at a different angle than what I saw at the MFA. You can see it here and not be impressed-- I wouldn't be. As they say, you had to be there. So as to not be totally annoying, here's another photo from the archive, this one a 3768x2956 image, that gives a slightly better sense of the subtle tonalities and level of detail of his work. This is the Canyon de Chelly in Arizona.

If you CAN be there--if you get the chance to see his work in person--then take the opportunity. I'm very happy I did.