[Largeformat] Re: Moonrise

[wd1346@airmail.net]

From: wd1346@airmail.net

Okay...let's discuss this further.  I was talking with a photographer
friend of mine today and She says that She once had a teacher who interned
with Ansel Adams.  The teacher told her that Ansel had a lady who worked
for him who was a miracle worker in the darkroom.  He brought a lot of
times some pretty poor negatives (like moonrise) and she saved them and
even made them the great images they are.  Now I am not positive about
anything here but I do know for a fact that a great many of theimages we
call 'classics' today would not be classics except for that some unknown
darkroom slave who took pride in his/her work saved the image.  Life
magazine is a good example of this.  Their darkroom 'made' the greats great
(or at least greater) by their incredible work.

In Ansel's case the teacher showed several examples of how this lady
approached printing inthe darkroom.  She put on a sheet of paper next to
the enlarger all the myriad changes and dodging/burning that had to be done
and worked down the list as She went.

btw...She also was positive that moonrise was a sandwich and that it was in
his book telling how he did it.  She was surprised when I told her that
there seemed to be opinions and evidence to the contrary.  I still think
Jeff has the correct story on this one.

--Anyone else hear about this?

--Bill Debold