Group f.64 by Mary Street Alinder

Author:Mary Street Alinder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2014-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

Figure 60. Willard Van Dyke, The Monolith Cement Works, c. 1933

Ansel Adams’s service to photography was just beginning. His battle waged with words continued with the publication of Modern Photography, 1934–1935, with his leadoff essay, “The New Photography.”21 In contrast to Pictorialist publications full of pale gray reproductions, this heavily illustrated hardcover volume contained handsome photogravures holding great tonal contrasts, with images by Ansel, Willard, and Edward, among a large international contingent.22

The Monolith Cement Works by Willard bore especially strong witness to the cause: a complex composition of a corrugated metal building, utility wires, a concrete tower, and three white smokestacks puffing away. Light and shadow revealed and concealed in a rhythmic progression across the picture surface, carrying all the hallmarks of pure photography. The caption read, “A photograph which combines a powerful design and breadth of effect with an excellent rendering of surface texture.”23

Ansel built his case for the “New Photography” on his understanding of the history of the medium. There had been so little written on the subject that it is a bit surprising that he knew as much as he did. In the beginning, according to Ansel, “photography was completely objective.” But then photography fell under the “sentimental” spell of Pictorialism: the Mauve years, he termed them. Finally photographers were freed by Alfred Stieglitz, whom Ansel hailed as “the Emancipator of the new art.”

Addressing the central point of his essay, “What is the ‘New Photography’?” Ansel offered the usual pure photography laundry list, enriched by a few juicy additions, arguing impressively about why photographic composition is the opposite of that of painting.

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