Discovering the World Without Color

[Stage Notes:: Road weary and smelling popcorn]
[TV:: Grey's Anatomy]

Yesterday afternoon, my sister and I drove down to the Detroit Institute of Arts and went to an exhibit of Ansel Adams photography. WOW. I was absolutely in awe of the work that he did! I had some idea of the type of photography he did, but was amazed at both his style and variety.

His early nature work was soft with carefully chosen focal points and the rest of the picture blurred. When he was shooting people, it was often native americans in the southwest. You could not pick out faces but there was fantastic detail in their dress. Though, despite these, it was his later work that I was fascinated with.

He was a lover of nature; especially that of Yellowstone National Park. Looking at the collection, it was more than apparent that he desired to show that park as well as several others in ways that the human eye cannot see. He wanted to show a world that you cannot see in color, and can only be seen in the most dramatic forms of black and white. I Cannot help but wonder what it would be like to see the world through his eyes. For example, this picture of Monolith is one of his big breakthroughs. He said it was the first time that the picture he saw in his mind is the picture he captured on film.



Wow.

After looking at the gallery, I realised that I have loved his style of photography for a long time...I just didn't know it was his. He formed a group with some other photographers called f/64. The group was dedicated to crisp, sharp, high contrast photography. It is the one thing he was dedicated to during the meatiest part of his career.

One of the most interesting parts of the exhibit was the picture of Ansel Adams that the DIA was painting. They showed a portrait of a quirky and silly starving artist. He was good friends with Georgia O'Keefe (which I had no idea). He seemed to vary widely in the subjects of his work, but was consistent in the way he shot those subjects. Some of his photos had a witty sense of humor about them, while others showed a delicate femininity, and still others had a sort of dark beauty that he could see and wanted everyone else too as well.