Online Lecture by Rebecca Senf: "Even Ansel Adams Had to Earn a Living"

Earlier today, I "attended" a lecture called "Even Ansel Adams Had to Earn a Living" which was about Adams's lesser-known commercial work. It was meant to be held as a traditional lecture held last month in the SW US, but it was moved online because of all of the social distancing we're doing. Here's a bit about the event:

Info after registering for the lecture:

About the book:
Making a Photographer: The Early Work of Ansel Adams
Rebecca A. Senf; with a foreword by Anne Breckenridge Barrett
An unprecedented and eye-opening examination of the early career of one of America’s most celebrated photographers
Purchase Book Here.

One of the most influential photographers of his generation, Ansel Adams (1902–1984) is famous for his dramatic photographs of the American West. Although many of Adams’s images are now iconic, his early work has remained largely unknown. In this first monograph dedicated to the beginnings of Adams’s career, Rebecca A. Senf argues that these early photographs are crucial to understanding Adams’s artistic development and offer new insights into many aspects of the artist’s mature oeuvre.

Drawing on copious archival research, Senf traces the first three decades of Adams’s photographic practice - beginning with an amateur album made during his childhood and culminating with his Guggenheim-supported National Parks photography of the 1940s. Highlighting the artist’s persistence in forging a career path and his remarkable ability to learn from experience as he sharpened his image-making skills, this beautifully illustrated volume also looks at the significance of the artist’s environmentalism, including his involvement with the Sierra Club.

About the author:
Dr. Rebecca A. Senf is Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, in Tucson. Her B.A. in Art History is from the University of Arizona; her M.A. and Ph.D. were awarded by Boston University. In 2012, her book Reconstructing the View: The Grand Canyon Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe was released by University of California Press; in 2017, her book To Be Thirteen, showcasing the work of Betsy Schneider, was published by Radius Press and Phoenix Art Museum. Senf is an Ansel Adams scholar, and recently published a book on Ansel Adams’s early years, called Making a Photographer, co-published by the CCP and Yale University Press.

When the time came, I jumped into the lecture:

There were immediately 200+ people there, and there were about 300 people there throughout the lecture.

Senf talked about Adams's early client-based work, and how that helped him to be able to understand his audience and to create work specifically for that client.

Senf speaking from the top of the screen, with her presentation below her.


Some work for the Sierra Club.

Senf talked about Adams realizing that he could use his style to "invest us as viewers" by showing us the power of the natural landscape. He worked to "create drama and invoke awe in the viewers." Senf made the argument that (because of his exposure and darkroom skills) his images showed how he FELT, not what he SAW.

"Moonrise over Hernandez New Mexico" - a much talked-about image
of his - comparing his final image and the more "raw" positive.

Adams was very upfront about the commercial work he did and how it supported his fine art career. He didn't shy away from talking about it. But he didn't connect them - he saw his commercial work and his fine art work as 2 very separate entities. One of Senf's points is that they were actually quite connected. I'd be curious to read more about that in her book.

According to Senf, early in his career, Adams was "coached" by his employer to make his images to promote Yosemite: he was only told to shoot winter scenes with deep, dramatic snow. He photographed people in front of large redwoods to make it more dramatic. This coaching seemed to directly affect how he would approach his own personal work.

Early work for Yosemite: deep snow and people dwarfed by large trees.

Adams struck a deal where the National Park would pay him just half of what they had agreed upon as long as he could retain the negatives. He seemed to understand they'd have a sellability, so he leveraged the commercial opportunity of the images. "There was less of an identity schism" back then between being a commercial vs fine art photographer Senf argued, so he just did what he could as a photographer (without being worried how the public would view his endeavors).

On that note, a postcard image is the cover of Senf's book. Adams would have printed these himself in large quantity:

Check out the book from Yale University Press here.

Speaking About Being a Professor/Photographer

Two days ago, I was asked to speak along with about 60 other professionals about my career at the White Bear Lake High School "career day." I had a group that was interested in being professors, but some were interested in the arts too, so I spoke a bit about each.

The staff bathroom had amazing decorations.


A totally normal gigantic box to be in a faculty lounge.


I make this photo whenever I walk into a school. It's now a part of me.


All done, headed to my car.

I got to speak to a pretty enthusiastic group. It was my 3rd time helping out at this event, and it's always been fun. Below is a bit of a "final takeaway" that I left them with as first seen in last year's post after the WBL event:

I might as well share a bit about what I told them here. After hitting on 8 points that the school wanted us all to talk about (like general work activities, helpful high school courses, skills and abilities, wages, etc), I ended with some of the points below...

My big takeaway for them at the end of my presentations was to that they either need to become THEE most educated in a very specific field, or (more likely) become well rounded and have lots of blanket knowledge in their field. I shared this example: "You could have your Masters and Doctorate on 15th century ceramics from the Ming Dynasty, but it might help to have a general 'Art History' minor or even 'Chinese history' minor. Don’t be TOO specific. Specificity might get you 1 perfect class every few semesters, but being well rounded will get you other classes where you can actually make a living." I told them how nearly half of the 70+ classes I've taught were actually Color Theory or 2D Design classes. I shared a story about a friend who wanted to teach ONLY film photography classes (so that's all she learned), and now she's taught maybe 3 courses in the same time that I've taught 70. There's a lesson in there.

On the photography side, I said I was by NO MEANS a great photographer, but I had tips to share. I stressed the idea of "making your own luck." I wasn't able to share this story today, but in grad school, I was the first to hang my MFA exhibition once the gallery had been prepped. It just so happened that the head of the Photography Dept at the University of Minnesota walked through the gallery just after I hung my work. He recognized my name as I had just recently applied to their "adjunct pool," and he enjoyed seeing my work in person. He told me a few years later that seeing my work up helped get me that job (and I ended up lecturing there for 6 years straight).

Related to that, I shared a story of winning the Golden Light Award and the "Social Document" category over 10 years ago. A senior photo editor from the New York Times Magazine was the juror for that, and because she saw my work, she called me a few months later asking if I could shoot a cover story for them. Umm, YES. And since then, I've completed 4 more projects for them. Had I not kept entering contests and submitting to galleries, I wouldn't have had my work in front of that photo editor, and I never would have done these 5 projects for the Times.

I CAN picture my life without having done those projects for the Times, but I CANNOT picture my life without the 6 years I taught at the University of Minnesota. Those courses really helped set the groundwork for my teacher career.

Speaking at Career Day at White Bear Lake High School

Earlier today, I was asked to speak to a few students at a "career day" at White Bear Lake High School. There were maybe 50-70 other people there to speak about their careers (including Kare11 anchor Tim McNiff). I spoke mainly about being a professor (that's what most of them wanted to hear about), but also a bit about being a photographer.

I just realized that I made nearly this exact same photo two years ago.


I Instagrammed this photo thanking Julie for inviting me back to speak.

I might as well share a bit about what I told them here. After hitting on 8 points that the school wanted us all to talk about (like general work activities, helpful high school courses, skills and abilities, wages, etc), I ended with some of the points below...

My big takeaway for them at the end of my presentations was to that they either need to become THEE most educated in a very specific field, or (more likely) become well rounded and have lots of blanket knowledge in their field. I shared this example: "You could have your Masters and Doctorate on 15th century ceramics from the Ming Dynasty, but it might help to have a general 'Art History' minor or even 'Chinese history' minor. Don’t be TOO specific. Specificity might get you 1 perfect class every few semesters, but being well rounded will get you other classes where you can actually make a living." I told them how nearly half of the 70+ classes I've taught were actually Color Theory or 2D Design classes. I shared a story about a friend who wanted to teach ONLY film photography classes (so that's all she learned), and now she's taught maybe 3 courses in the same time that I've taught 70. There's a lesson in there.

On the photography side, I said I was by NO MEANS a great photographer, but I had tips to share. I stressed the idea of "making your own luck." I wasn't able to share this story today, but in grad school, I was the first to hang my MFA exhibition once the gallery had been prepped. It just so happened that the head of the Photography Dept at the University of Minnesota walked through the gallery just after I hung my work. He recognized my name as I had just recently applied to their "adjunct pool," and he enjoyed seeing my work in person. He told me a few years later that seeing my work up helped get me that job (and I ended up lecturing there for 6 years straight).

Related to that, I shared a story of winning the Golden Light Award and the "Social Document" category over 10 years ago. A senior photo editor from the New York Times Magazine was the juror for that, and because she saw my work, she called me a few months later asking if I could shoot a cover story for them. Umm, YES. And since then, I've completed 4 more projects for them. Had I not kept entering contests and submitting to galleries, I wouldn't have had my work in front of that photo editor, and I never would have done these 5 projects for the Times.

I CAN picture my life without having done those projects for the Times, but I CANNOT picture my life without the 6 years I taught at the University of Minnesota. Those courses really helped set the groundwork for my teacher career.

Career Day at White Bear Lake High School

Yesterday I was 1 of maybe 50 professionals to talk about what we do at a big "career day" at White Bear Lake High School. I was asked to speak to a few groups of 5-8 students each who were interested in either being photographers or college professors.

Isn't this the strangest bathroom? I don't know why there's a bull on that table
(or why there's a table) because their mascot is a bear.

A Night of PechaKucha Talks Hosted by CVA Action

Saturday was another great event hosted by CVA Action (the nonprofit where I'm the vice president of the board). We held a night of PechaKucha artist presentations by 8 former CVAers. Basically, a PechaKucha lecture is where you present 20 slides that automatically advance every 20 seconds - once the presentation starts, you have to keep up with the rapid-fire slides, and then you're done 6 minutes and 40 seconds later. They were informative, inspirational, and entertaining. We had the pleasure of holding the presentations at Rosalux Gallery where Val Jenkins (former Chair of Fine Arts at CVA) was in a 2-person show.

Here are a number of photos that show a bit of what the night was like:

Photo from Josh of Val, me, and Shannon (board president) shortly after starting to get set up.


Photo from Diane of Caroline and I working on some lighting.


A photo that CVA Action Instagrammed showing that the food truck had arrived just outside the gallery.


People starting to arrive.


Photo from Josh of some of the ENKI growlers of beer.


[click image to enlarge] - Diane's panorama of Shannon getting the night kicked off!
You can see me standing near the front, as I was about to be introduced as the emcee for the event.

Things got underway, and (after we got the projector turned on) the night went off without a hitch. Board President Shannon and I both snapped crappy iPhone photos of the presenters from either side of the gallery:

Pascal Staub was our "remote" presenter presenting from Switzerland. Here's video of him
presenting on the computer screen, with his work being projected on the wall behind him.


A photo from Josh from the back, showing the projection and a pleasantly crowded gallery.


Joseph Kuefler working to inspire us.


Joseph


DC Ice sharing her work.


DC


Another photo of DC from Kolean P, former professor at CVA sitting in the front row.


Jehra Patrick discussing the work she's done with MNArtists.org and the Walker Art Center.


Jehra from the back.


Abby Haddican talking about her design process.


Abby (and yes, that's Ryan Gosling on the computer screen...)


Ben Levitz sharing how he worked towards opening his printmaking shop "Studio on Fire."


Ben


Marc Stephens sharing a mini-retrospective of Aaron Purmort's work.


Marc


Jamey Erickson getting ready to entertain us with stories of starting/closing his design firm,
astro photography, sending cameras/weather balloons into space, and his newest start-up.


Jamey was too expressive: all of my photos of him look something like this.


[click image to enlarge] - Our 7 presenters: DC, Abby, Joseph, Marc, Jehra, Ben, and Jamey.
(Not pictured: Pascal from Switzerland.) Thanks you 8! You were amazing!!

People hung around to talk with the presenters and to eat more tacos afterwards.

Photo from Josh of people mingling post-PechaKucha.


As the CVA Action board cleaned up, we finished the last of the ENKI beer.


Rosalux was put back to normal to showcase Val Jenkins and Laura Stack's work by 10:30 p.m. What a night!

Stay tuned for maybe 1 more post from the PechaKucha talks once some more images come in. And check out CVA Action's website and Facebook page for more info.

p.s. The day after the PechaKucha talks, the REVERBERATIONS show at Form+Content and Traffic Zone Galleries came down. Here's CVA Action board member Diane B taking out some nails as Lynda and Kaitlin take a piece off the wall:

Never mind my son in the foreground...

Here are some photos from the REVERBERATIONS opening, and here are some photos of the show itself.

Angela Strassheim Lecture

Last night, a handful of CVA students and I attended a lecture by photographer Angela Strassheim. David Little (photo curator at the MIA) was there to ask questions of her work and lead the discussion. After the lecture, we all headed over to the MIA to see the work.

David and Angela during the lecture

"One person can see it as sweet and loving, and one person can be terrified by it, and they're looking at the same image." - Angela discussing something she likes about photography, and something that she discovered while showing her older work.

Her new work "Evidence" consists of photos of DNA evidence left in the walls / floors well after familial homicides. Here's a quote from the MIA New Pictures website:

...During a six-year period between her undergraduate and graduate studies, she earned a living as a forensic photographer, taking pictures of crime scenes and autopsies. Since 2009, she has applied this on-the-job experience to produce Evidence, a more nuanced and less scientific examination of domestic crime. These photographs reveal the eerie vestiges of past lives in homes that are now inhabited by new families...

She sprays the area where the crime occurred with a substance that reacts with the iron left behind from the blood. She does this in completely blackened rooms so that the blood and DNA evidence BECOMES the light source in the photo.

"It's about loving relationships with family members. It's about people that LOVED each other." - Angela during the lecture.

"I've found these to be 'Memorials of Light'." - Angela during the lecture.

After the lecture, we headed over to the MIA to see some of the work in person. Here's some of the "CVA Photo Club" as we were getting ready to leave:

If you want to see more, check out Angela's website. Or take a look at the video below produced by the MIA: