Wherever you go, there you are

A long time ago, the photographer Ansel Adams—a titanic chronicler of the natural world—was accused of complacency by one of his peers. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the pioneering photojournalist, said that environment-focused artists like Adams were so dedicated to depicting the wilderness that they ignored what was happening in the human world. There was such terrible context, so much light to cast on people and the things they do, said Cartier-Bresson. Yet “the world is falling to pieces and [Edward] Weston and Adams are doing pictures of rocks.”

Adams gave his answer in an interview in Playboy, no less.

“I would never apologize for photographing rocks. Rocks can be very beautiful,” Adams told the journalist David Sheff. “But, yes, people have asked why I don’t put people into my pictures of the natural scene. I respond: There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.”

It’s a poignant note, and it rings true. Even the most strange or disconnected piece of art is an attempt at conversation: you bring yourself to every photograph you see, every canvas you look at. 

You bring yourself to every book that you read, too.

It’s one reason I enjoy non-fiction so much, because even the weirdest or most esoteric or badly-written books have a way of opening up spaces for you to think. They give you a way to create connections between ideas or concepts that go far beyond the work itself. That’s powerful and underrated.

And, as I have said before, it’s one of the reasons I appreciated this month’s choice so much. If you found any connections, I’d love to hear about them (just hit reply or email [email protected].)

As it goes, Ansel Adams didn’t just photograph rocks anyway. 

A couple of years ago I went to an exhibition here in San Francisco where I saw the arresting images he made from inside Japanese internment camps during the Second World War. These photographs were actually displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in 1945, while America was still at war. It was so controversial that the exhibition closed early and the images weren’t shown again for decades.

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I’ll leave with a few notes from around the Curious universe. 

First, I loved this interview with Carvell Wallace on the Thresholds podcast. Carvell (CUR004, Another Word For Love) is so good at explaining what it is like to change as a person, about having new perspectives on what’s around us, rather than letting the world happen to you. He also gives a little advice on finding creative alchemy: “I haven’t had a lot of success making stuff that really sparkles with a plan… I have to not have a plan, then I have to basically just go for it and then I have to see what’s there and then I have to see what’s happening.” (Added bonus: Carvell has a great voice… I could listen to him talk all day.)

Second, Nicola Twilley (CUR006, Frostbite) had a fascinating story in the New Yorker last month about the quest to create artificial blood. In it she rides along with a clinical trial of a promising new substance; visits a blood factory in Bristol; gives us all a sanguineous history lesson. Great idea, great story, and I thought I’d linked to it in a previous edition but even if I did it’s good enough to re-up.

Finally, to bring it back to photography, Lauren Markham (CUR001, A Map of Future Ruins) has a piece in Broadcast, the publication from New York art center Pioneer Works about “ways of looking.” She talks about words and cameras and, yes, perspectives: “I really wasn’t a very good photographer. I was just a diligent one, and obsessed with the way the camera demanded my total presence.”

Meanwhile I’m reading furiously to get ahead of myself for future club picks. We’ve got some fun stuff coming up, I’m excited when I can share it all with you.

Onward

Bobbie