From the archives: Photographer Ansel Adams

In this "Sunday Morning" interview originally broadcast September 9, 1979, CBS News correspondent Ed Bradley talked with acclaimed photographer Ansel Adams, then the subject of a major touring exhibition of his spectacular landscape images. Bradley also visited the darkroom at Adams' Pacific Coast home in California, where the perfectionist judges and rejects prints made from his negatives. Bradley also talked with the Museum of Modern Art's curator of photography John Szarkowski about Adams' distinctive eye.
#AnselAdams #photography #fineartphotography
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[@allanjacquadro870]

He was so prescient about digital photography. The master.

[@brianwhite1189]

Ansel graciously signed my copy of 'Yosemite and the Range of Light' and showed me his darkroom at his Carmel home in October, 1979. He was a lovely man.

[@chrisfinch8637]

This vintage piece right here, it was one of the ways to appreciate what Charles Kuralt presented to us, for the first 15 Sunday Morning Years.

[@limpfster94]

Ansel Adams will always be "in"

[@b.visconti1765]

He created Art out of his surroundings..He is the best! Bless him

[@adelaferreira4575]

Great artist and he will forever leave his print for all of us to enjoy !

[@karmicsheila63]

I will always love Ansel Adams.

[@philippesauvie639]

Great interview. Great man. Great artist!

[@ZeacorZeppelin]

Him predicting like photoshop was pretty interesting that there will be a computer that can scan film negatives and reprint them, and we have digital cameras. I have become really good at pinhole photography, and it becomes like a rhythm. You just take the right steps and you know what you're going to get. He really got into Polaroids, especially the x70 camera. I have one. It needs a tune up but boy does it get good stuff when it's right.

[@greatpix]

I took my first photography class the summer I graduated from high school. At the time, like many photographers, I wanted to be another Ansel Adams or Edward Weston. Oddly enough I ended up making images more like George Hurrell and there's a story that ties into that. I lived near the Irvine Fine Art Center and one weekend they had an open house and I went to see what they had going on that day. Well, I was walking around and there in a small side alcove was this gentleman in his later years standing next to an easel with these large 2'x3' black and white and sepia prints clamped to the top. The older gentleman was finishing up a conversation with a couple who looked to be in their 20's and they left leaving him standing there looking at me and smiling. I went over, introduced myself and he said he was George, and we started talking. I had recently become interested in old Hollywood style portraiture like they did with stars like Clark Gable or Myrna Loy and these prints of his interested me. So, I stood there and talked to the gentleman for a good 30-40 minutes, not necessarily about photography all the time. Some other people had walked into the alcove so I knew my time was up. I bid him goodbye and went to explore more of the displays they had that day. A few months later I was reading the paper and saw a photo of the man I'd been talking to. It was an obituary. There was a multi column article along with his photo and while reading it my jaw dropped. The gentleman I'd been talking to, sounding like an idiot at times I'm sure, was no other than George Hurrell THE most well known and respected portrait photographer in Hollywood's history! He was the equal of Ansel Adams in making prints, retouching right on the negatives using pencil, stains, and even etching the negatives with knives to achieve what he visualized. If only I'd known! I think of all the questions I would have asked and the stories he could have shared with me. Well, I retired 8 years ago to SW Utah, a state filled with National parks and landscape opportunities. I thought, "Time to get back to my first passion, landscape photography". Then my legs and back started to have serious problems which left me unable to walk farther than to the mailbox and even coming back into the house was challenging. So, instead of disappearing for weeks at a time photographing the amazing landscapes across the state like I had planned on doing, I was stuck taking photos from my car or close to it as long as the ground was flat and easy to navigate on my painful and shaky legs. Still, I've gotten some good images I am proud of so it's not been a total loss. I still enjoy the visualizing of the image, the capture on digital media, the hours spent in Photoshop and not the darkroom this time around, and pulling what little hair I have left working with various printers/manufacturers trying to get the print I want. There's still a little of the spirit of Ansel Adams in me.

[@thegreatvanziniphotos5976]

Ansel, Ed & Charles. I miss them all.

[@richardpace8496]

A true American Angel Adams!

[@peacenow4456]

Ansel, the Master's small museum at Yosemite was wonderful.

[@jsamc]

Wow Ansel Adams in color.

[@michaelmullen8373]

Simply inspirational!

[@sandiludwig3018]

He was a national treasure.

[@nav662007]

Oh, that was nice!

[@rebekahcuriel-alessi2239]

Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!

[@canyonhaverfield2201]

Married as I was, to Edward Weston's granddaughter, an living at Wildcat, in both Edwards home as well as in Charis's studio, Body House, Jana & I had spent much time immersed within the family of artists & the local scene.

[@davidlong1786]

It appears that Ansel Adam's photographs were better preserved than CBS Sunday Morning episode was. 🙁

[@Thekennel177]

I remember seeing his work at a Montana museum. Amazing work. But the curator had the light so low you couldn’t see the work. To prevent fading he said. Who are you preserving it for, I asked. The future he said. I asked him if anyone is going to see these photos as Ansel Adams intended? Nope, he said.

[@JohnSextonPhoto]

Ed Bradley, and the CBS Sunday Morning crew, conducted the interview with Ansel at Point Lobos, and Ansel's nearby home, on August 21, 1979. I had recently began my tenure as Ansel's Photographic Assistant, and you might catch a brief glimpse of me behind Ansel in one of the darkroom scenes! 🤠

[@morrisgentry8624]

Great for you to comment, John! I have one of your exquisite prints hanging in my foyer, purchased through “Friends of Photography” many years ago. You are an amazing photographer in the classic style I love. This interview was just a few years before I had the pleasure of meeting Ansel in Monterey. So impressed with the humble, modest, gentle and engaging genius that was Ansel Adams. I can’t imagine what a pleasure it would have been to work directly with him as you did.

[@debbiecooper1677]

I love his stuff

[@malenurse51]

He clearly anticipated digital photography in 1979.

[@gurlindataylor8471]

I hav a ANSEL ADAMS photograph is called point sur

[@ratgirl13]

Nope. When you take a picture-that’s Art-you don’t have to be Ansel Adams for your photography to be called Art-and yes, I do enjoy Ansel Adam’s photography.

[@leonardodalongisland]

As a life-long Adams' fan, I need to say; do not judge his work based upon the horrible presentation of this video/CBS production. They do not accurately represent his work. The blacks, the white and the contrast are all wrong-very wrong. To me, these images look like a partially-blind child printed them.

[@photogl]

Soooo sad the POOR quality of this video destroys the quality of his work…..