Review: Master Photographers: Ansel Adams, BBC, 1983

Master Photographers is a 1983 series from the BBC profiling six photographers:  Alfred Eisenstaedt, Bill Brandt, Andreas Feininger, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Andre Kertesz, Ansel Adams.   The series format has the subject in his studio or office with a stack of preselected printed images.  Interviewer Peter Adam (not identified in the films or the credits) asks questions while the subject discusses the photos he has prepared.

I began this series more than a year ago (in February 2013) and thought, with only six 30-minute episodes, I would finish it rather quickly.  It seems there were other things to do along the way.

This final episode is about a photographer I have known only by reputation, and through references in histories of photography.  It was, then, with some fascination to discover Mr Adams trained as a classical pianist before turning to image making. He says he tried for some time to do both, but found it impossible to do justice to either, that it was for him all or none. This is, I suppose, what one might expect from a perfectionist.  Known for his “realistic” depictions of nature, he notes that in terms of tonal values none of his images are “real,” but interpretations.  He says he became so facile that bracketing was not necessary and is, he believes, a sign of insecurity, though he does admit to taking additional exposures to compensate for scratches or other technical imperfections over which he has little control.  The interviewer remarks on the abstract nature of a desert scene, to which Adams replies he prefers the term extract/extraction, as abstraction is beyond the ability of the photographer and his equipment, which always references the real. The interview concludes with the question of whether Adams has ever produced the perfect picture, to which he replies, “No, the best picture is around the corner, like prosperity.”

This is one of the last interviews with Adams, who died the following year, in 1984.

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