On 10/21/2010 11:27 AM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> Then I'll probably like the color book if it's landscape and nature. The
> color photos I was referring to looked like quite ordinary snapshots of
> people. Even the color wasn't very good but that may have been the repro
> process.
According to the book, Adams took over 3,500 color images, starting when
Kodachrome was invented in the 30s. Kodak
contracted with him to use their films as they developed them. He did other
commercial work in color, as well as some
photography for himself.
He was never much of a portraitist, so I imagine the shots of people may have
been, in effect, tests of color rendering
of skin tones. I've recounted here before seeing a large series of his prints
of a photo shoot for the Dominican College
of San Rafael, CA. Beautiful exposure, tonalities, focus, etc. Uninspired, if
workmanlike, compositions, and the people
in them seem largely flat, lifeless.
Reading some of his letters, I imagine looking at 8x10 Kodachromes on a light
table, then at the crummy prints possible
at the time - and being incredibly frustrated. He was a master at creating his
vision of the subject on paper from a
negative. But he had no control over the color printing process at all, and the
results had none of the magic qualities
of the transparencies.
The reproductions in the book are quite another thing. Created with some sort
of laser scanning process from the
original transparencies, they are beautiful.
Moose
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