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GTG
Was lost but now am found
Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 2387
Location: Peoria, Arizona, originally from Rocket City, USA
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 Posted: 11/14/2006, 10:20 am Post subject: A blurry snapshot of my meeting with a photography icon |
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I've been thinking of getting a group together to go to the museum to see the Ansel Adams display. Anyone game?
From today's Arizona Republic -
http://www.azcentral.com/news/columns/articles/1114montini1114.html#
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A blurry snapshot of my meeting with a photography icon
E.J. Montini
Republic columnist
Nov. 14, 2006 12:00 AM
Perhaps we could put crass politics and other bad news behind us for a moment and contemplate the finer things in life. Art, for instance.
We could begin with the stunning $50 million renovation of the Phoenix Art Museum, which opened to the public last weekend. One of the shows on display is a selection of black-and-white photographs by 20th-century master Ansel Adams.
I went to look at the exhibit: small pictures of grass, rocks, flowers, trees, many of them taken in Yosemite National Park in the 1930s. They speak with a precision and beauty that is unchanged by time.
That is the difference between art and life. It's a lesson I learned from Adams himself.
It happened 23 years ago, when he and his wife, Virginia Best, got me drunk.
In 1983, I was relatively new on the job and still awed by the access to great people that was available to anyone with a press pass. Adams, who was in his early 80s, was in Phoenix to drum up donations for a building drive at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, of which he was a co-founder.
I met him and his wife at their hotel suite in downtown Phoenix, where I found the iconic photographer fiddling with an expensive new electronic camera.
"Are you trying to figure out the automatic features?" I asked.
"I'm trying to disconnect them," Adams said, smiling.
He was patient, graciously answering my questions as if they had merit and providing me with printable quotes like, "You must not learn to play the piano or take photographs like someone else. You must learn the craft, after which you can take photographs like yourself."
We spoke for an hour. When the interview was over, I switched off my tape recorder and thanked Adams for his time.
As I stood up to leave, his wife emerged from the bedroom carrying a flask of whiskey and saying, "You're finished? Good."
They were scheduled to catch a plane in a few hours, she said, and she'd just found out from the airline that she would not be permitted to bring an open flask onboard.
"I'm not going to pour it down the drain," she said, "so we'll have to finish it off now. We need your help."
She then ordered Adams to rummage through the small refrigerator in the room in search of mixers. It was not yet noon.
An hour or so later, I was as happy as a young man could be as I walked back to the office. The next day, I wrote an article that didn't mention the cocktails, about which I had no coherent notes, nor much of a coherent memory.
And there's the lesson.
Should you go to the newly renovated Phoenix Art Museum, you'll see in the gelatin silver prints made by Adams in the 1930s the clarity and simplicity of his vision.
That is the difference between art and life, between art and memory.
Great art, like the photographs of Ansel Adams, takes our complex world and brings it into focus. It's there to see if you take the time to look. But there's no rush. Art waits.
Life does not. Neither does memory. Memory is life exposed to the bright light of time. It fades.
What remains from my morning with Adams and his wife is not a clear picture but a fuzzy snapshot. Although, I'm pretty sure that I'm smiling in it.
Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8978. Read his blog at Montiniblog.azcentral.com.
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GTG
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jmzblond
J Me
Joined: 03 Jan 2003
Posts: 1114
Location: Chandler, AZ
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| Posted: 11/14/2006, 11:49 am Post subject: |
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Put Dave and me down for this one. We'll go w/ you, Todd.
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kurthzone
Thread Killer
Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 1097
Location: Peoria, Arizona
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| Posted: 11/14/2006, 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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I'd like to go depending on the day and time. Saw an Ansel Adams exhibit 4 years ago on a field trip with Cactus Highschool and daughter Briana to the Scottsdale Museum of Modern Art. It was the day after a prostate cancer biopsy, not real fun physically. The Exhibit was amazing, representing many of his major works.
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desertgirl
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
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Location: Chandler, AZ
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evenstar
Joined: 03 Jan 2003
Posts: 5548
Location: SCW by way of CA
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| Posted: 11/14/2006, 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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I'm up for it depending on date.
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paintninaz
Joined: 06 Jan 2003
Posts: 3515
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| Posted: 11/14/2006, 12:57 pm Post subject: Re: A blurry snapshot of my meeting with a photography icon |
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| GTG wrote: |
| I've been thinking of getting a group together to go to the museum to see the Ansel Adams display. Anyone game? |
I'm game! 
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“Friends make the bad times good — and the good times unforgettable.” |
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wanderingsoul
Joined: 19 Jul 2004
Posts: 2285
Location: Gilbert AZ
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| Posted: 11/14/2006, 1:48 pm Post subject: |
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I'd be interested, depending on date.
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Positive Thinking Is the Spark that Makes Dreams Happen~~~Unknown |
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threedogz
Joined: 06 May 2005
Posts: 668
Location: Chandler
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| Posted: 11/14/2006, 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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I"m going to see Ansel Adams Gallery at the Ballagio in Vegas on the 20th of January for my b-day...
I cant wait. My favorite work of his is "Winter Sunrise"
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Matt Hoffman
Joined: 18 Feb 2004
Posts: 701
Location: Grantham, NH
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| Posted: 11/14/2006, 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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I happened to be at a "opening" of some sort at the Phoenix Art Museum last Wednesday nite. A sculptor I know managed to weasel the museum into giving him a whole room to display his work. The previous sentence should reveal what I thought of his display. 
Anyway, I walked around the rest of the museum (the parts that were open anyway) and stumbled across the Ansel Adams exhibit. I hate to be pessimistic, but the museum needs to pony up some dough and get some real Ansel Adams photos in there. It looked like they raided the dumpster behind Ansel's darkroom and put all of his throw-a-ways in a matte and frame. This exhibit looks like a collection of all his worst work. Thankfully I got to see it for free. If I were any of you who are thinking of going to see this pile, I would consider putting my $10 entrance fee towards a good photography book instead.
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threedogz
Joined: 06 May 2005
Posts: 668
Location: Chandler
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| Posted: 11/14/2006, 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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The Ballagio will have 50 prints plus letters and his camera equipment. I believe this is showing until May of 2007.
Here is the link to the information. We already bought our tickets. I can't wait.
http://www.bellagiolasvegas.com/pages/attrac_gallery.asp
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Hnak
Joined: 06 Jan 2003
Posts: 1766
Location: Prescott, AZ
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| Posted: 11/14/2006, 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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I'd definitely be interested!
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Hikngrl
Canyoneering is my 'Happy Place'
Joined: 27 May 2003
Posts: 5578
Location: Peoria, AZ
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| Posted: 11/14/2006, 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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I'd love to go! I too would be dependent on the proper date and time....
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