The Encyclopedia Of Photography By Williard Morgan

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHOTOGRAPHY

BOOK REVIEWS

Willard Morgan

Greystone Press, New York, 1963, 1964 20 Volumes, 4000 pp, 5,500 illusts. $3.98 per volume

A million of anything is an imponderable quantity. Adding another half-million makes it only more so. Little wonder, therefore, when the publishing world wanted to prepare a 2½-million word, 5,500-illustration ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHOTOGRAPHY, they sought a big man.

They found him: Willard D. Morgan, six-feet-seven in height, with physical proportions to match, and a list of photographic authorship credits of equal dimensions. The head of Morgan and Morgan accepted the challenge and, as those of us who knew him were certain he would, met the challenge squarely.

Obviously, anything so prodigious couldn’t be a one-man effort. No individual could do this alone. That’s why Morgan fine-tooth-combed the field of photography for over 300 of the top flight authorphotographer-technician-esthetitians—everyone from Walt Disney to Margaret Bourke-White—begging, pleading, cajoling ... to enable the meeting of deadlines. He met them.

The final result is an assemblage of the mighty, an outpouring of the ingenious, and an array of the talented. From a crassly practical point of view, the Encyclopedia of Photography is everything from a primer for the neophyte to a Gibralter for the professional.

Certainly, the value of such a work cannot be evaluated by merely a list of contributors, even though the contributors of both photos and articles read like a Who’s Who in Photography. Nor can an Encyclopedia be appraised merely on the basis of the extensiveness of the list of topics covered. It is, rather, the fiber and flavor of the innards that must meet the test of time.

In the opinion of this reviewer, the new Encyclopedia will long be a landmark in our world of photography even though it is not—as no such humanwrought work could conceivably be—the epitome of perfection. Offset printing allowed a free use of bleeds on the 8y2 x 11-inch pages and larger layout sizes for the illustrations. The reproduction quality is not to be compared to fine letterpress printing, the cost of which would have been prohibitive. The weak spots are, however,

merely specks and blemishes in relationship to the mighty assemblage of expertise.

One becomes impressed with the esthetics as well as the authenticity by finding significant contributions of the calibre of Margaret Mead’s “Anthropology and The Camera” nestled among the bread-andbutter of “Artificial Lighting,” by General Electric’s Don Mohler, “Architectural Photography,” by G. E. Kidder Smith, and “Beginner’s Guide to Developing and Printing,” by Kodak’s Dr. Grant M. Haist.

Within the sphere of technology, Harold Harvey’s treatise on the background of developers and developing is a stalwart; Ansel Adams’ famed “Exposure with the Zone System” would have been obvious by its absence if not included, and Bennett Sherman’s thorough discourse on photographic lenses is penetrative. All of these are indicative of the thoroughness with which the Encyclopedia pursues an objective of truly comprehensive coverage.

Only such an objective could have brought together a trio comprising Roy Stryker, Berenice Abbott and John Collier Jr., each making his individual contribution but collectively performing the function of truly documenting one word: “Documentary.” For example John Collier, Jr. wrote “The documentary photographer works best whenever life confounds him.” (Article: “Documentary Image”). Roy E. Stryker included this in his article “The ‘documentarians’ differ from strictly pictorial photographers chiefly in the degree and quality of their love for life.” Also, “. . . truth is the objective of the documentary attitude.” (Article: “Documentary

Photography”). Berenice Abbott wrote, “The city is life whose terms of daily experience must be translated into order and meaning.” (Article: “Documenting the City”).

Beaumont Newhall has condensed into one section an astounding amount of photographic history, stipulating contributions made to photographic evolvement by Daguerre, Talbot, Steiglitz, Atget and many others.

Three of the toughest assignments went direct tc three of photography’s recognized greats: Andreas Feininger, for a masterful treatise on photographic perspective; to Minor White, for an analytical and factual presentation on “Pictorial Photography;” and to Philippe Halsman for “Psychological Portraiture.” It is probable that we should have said quartette instead of trio, with the addition of “Seeing Photographically,” by Edward Weston.

Van Deren Coke presents an article on “Teaching Photography” that reflects college level courses of the present time.

One significant aspect of this work, and certainly deserving of mention here, is the pure logic evidenced in the presentation method. This becomes even more apparent when compared with previously-published photographic works of a comprehensive nature. Instead of using a pedantic treatment« Willard Morgan and his collaborators take the reader tantalizingly from subject to subject along a pathway sprinkled with illustrations, replete with an objective analysis of hundreds of them. These analyses are conducted mainly in camera club jargon rather than in the excellent generative manner in various articles in the Encyclopedia by Barbara Morgan, Leo Katz and Ansel Adams.

Altering the pace with an almost musical lilt are sections of color plates, mostly full-page occupations, of time-tested and austered quality. Using but one section as an example, we find George Silk’s “Hallowe’en;” Hiro’s “Birds Silhouetted Against Sim;” Fritz Henle’s “Nude with Red Hat;” Richard Beattie’s Ektacolors of boy, girl and boat; Alexander Liberman’s “Alberto Giacometti;” Horst Baumann’s “Steps;” a Capitol Records’ disc cover, “Spring and Champagne;” Ken Veeder’s “Gaite Parisienne;” R. V. Lusby’s “Moslem Women;” Ann Brennan’s “Friday’s Child;” Olle Redhe’s “Walk in the. Mist;” Harold Kramer’s “Pictures at an Exhibition;” Phillip Harrington’s “In A Chinese Garden;” and Wynn Bullock’s “Light Abstraction.”

Such judicious color selections are augmented by feature sections devoted to “Great Photographs from Great Newspapers,” coast-to-coast and border-to-border.

Throughout the entire work there is evidence of deft counter-balancing of illustration with text, esthetics with practicality, technology with artistry. It is therefore highly doubtful that any owner-user of this 20-volume edition will read it lightly, nor will they read it but once. The material has a beckoning character that is almost irresistable in format, in illustration-supported design, and in typography. We instinctively find ourselves reaching for more . . . and more . . . and more . . .

Ralph “Skipper” Miller

On the general subject of the aesthetics and practice of the art of photography several related articles and scores of illustrations appear, including those illustrations that accompany the brief biographies. Most writing on such subjects tend to be obscure because the ideas are inherently difficult. The editorial policy, however, was to keep this significant information useful and understandable by the newcomer to the field. (This is true also in the technical fields.) The lucidity that the writers who are concerned with the art of photography brought to the task is rewarding. The dangers of over-simplification are avoided in an amazing number of instances.

The major writers in this field are Barbara Morgan, George Amberg, Syl Labrot, Leo Katz, the late Conrad Kramer, Nathan Lyons. For all the divergent viewpoints and topics these persons appear to work from the same, or similar central philosophy. This philosophy may be compactly stated thus; a reciprocal relation is present between inner and outer and that a frank acknowledgement of this is the basis of photography as an art medium. In his article “Evolution of Visual Consciousness” Leo Katz states this central philosophy thus: “Relatively few photographers have paused to think about the goals of photography beyond personal gratification. Fewer still have tried to discover its historical mission, its place in the evolution of visual consciousness, and its cultural benefits or dangers.

“Tradition must not interfere with its continued advance to ever newer frontiers of dimension, form, space, color, motion, sound, and the mind (conscious and subconscious) on the one hand, as well as soul on the other.”

To locate related articles easily, titles of such articles are printed at the head of each topic. The cross referencing is excellent.

A few quotations from the key articles on the art of photography follow:

Barbara Morgan, “Abstraction in Photography”

“Photographic abstracting is not just the apeing of abstract painting. On the contrary: it is the form-changing, form-making expression inherent in the medium by which the photographer recasts the objective vision to project his subjective vision.”

Conrad Kramer, “Composition”

“Don’t just look at it—contemplate it, and come back to it time and again.”

Leo Katz, “Dimensions in Photography”

“It is surprising to the student of art history that study of the dimensional laws of composition is practically non-existant in photography. The function of points, lines and planes and their dimensional significance is largely ignored.”

Ansel Adams, “Geometrical Approach to Composition”

“Perhaps the simplest method of understanding compositional relationships is to investigate the section (or the sector point) of lines of force or direction evolving from the subject.”

Nathan Lyons, “Landscape Photography”

“The landscape in photography should not be considered as an isolated category of work. Rather it should be seen in relation to the history of the medium and the changing meaning it has held for many photographers.”

“The extension of expression—to challenge our feelings rather than satiate them—demands an understanding of the significance of vision and the value of personal expression.”

(This article also includes a bibliography on the subject.)

Barbara Morgan, “Esthetics of Photography”

“Esthetic principles by which the working elements of line, volume and so forth are knitted together into a pictorial unity are: rhythm, opposition, proportion, transition, balance, kinetics, and symbolism or purpose.”

“Photography serves a great purpose today, since it is a visual language universally understood. An esthetic sense adds eloquence to its expressive power. Photographers with this command can discover and communicate the essence of life—the grain of rock, the integrity of a face, the spirit of our times. Some attune themselves and their cameras so finely to this ebb and flow of aliveness that they reach the primal instants of life. This I take it, is the intention, avowed or unavowed, of every artist.”

Minor White, “Pictorial Photography”

“The Stieglitzian Theory of Equivalence is beginning to be recognized by today’s photographers as the perennial trend in art.”

The alphabetical arrangement of a profusely illustrated Encyclopedia automatically brings a sense of dilution to the looker and reader such as is not obvious in the usual encyclopedia. For example the technically minded in reaching the article they want, are exposed to quantities of material that is of utterly no interest to them. Or visually sensitive ones are exposed to glamour, sports, charts and low grade reproductions and can not help feel let down by the impact of the adjacent material. This sense of dilution is compensated for, at least partially, in that the structure of the encyclopedia gives the reader a chance to encompass the taste of images typical during this past decade. Compare this edition of the Encyclopedia with the original one; the fashion in images has changed in many fields. Only a reader with a totally catholic taste or interest can appreciate the totality of the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHOTOGRAPHY.

Editor

Eugene Atget and Marcel Proust/A VISION OF^ PARIS

Edited with an Introduction by Arthur D. Trottenberg Photographs from the Atget Collection of Berenice Abbott

The MacMillan Company, New York 1963 212 pp. 121 Illusts. $19.95

Edward Steichen/A LIFE IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Doubleday and Company, Garden City, New York 1963 282 pp. not numbered, 249 Illusts. $19.50

Two books, each dealing with the work of a single photographer, from different publishers, timed for the Christmas trade and costing almost $20 apiece, invite a comparative evaluation.

I quickly discovered that the text material in both books has no relation to photography per se. In VISION OF PARIS this was made editorially explicit; in A LIFE IN PHOTOGRAPHY it becomes evident after reading. A friend who received the Steichen book for Christmass asked me, “With those photographs to look at, who is going to read the text?” And I find the photographs, covering a period of more than 60 years, tell me more about Steichen the photograper than does his text.

In his introduction to A VISION OF PARIS Arthur D. Trottenberg stresses his intent for the book: “This volume does bring together the work of two superlative artists so that the art of one may both illuminate and reinforce the art of the other.” I agree completely with his statement, “. . . the two artists, with lens and pen, provide a uniquely strong statement about a particular time and place.”

The strength of this visual-verbal statement becomes for me, after several trips through the book, almost hypnotic. As I attempt to formulate a verbalization of my valuation of this volume I find myself forced into contemplating the non-verbal sensation—or into writing puerilities.

Mr. Trottenberg’s pairings of phrase and photograph are thrilling and his introduction is a delight to read, and includes brief biographies of both Proust and Atget. I am sorry nobody saw fit to tell something about him in this book. He is the Dean of the Visual Arts Department at Harvard.

The reproductions of the Atget photographs came from the magnificent Berenice Abbott collection of negatives and prints by Atget. Miss Abbott helped supervise the quality of the reproductions. At the time of Atget’s death it was Miss Abbott who rescued the negatives and prints from destruction. Later they were shipped to this country, housed, maintained and cared for in her studio ever since.

A LIFE IN PHOTOGRAPHY seems much too narrow a title for Steichen’s ramble through his three careers in photography, with notes on painting and delphinium hybridizing. As mentioned, the reader will learn no “how-to’s” about photography, nor will he learn about painting or delphinium hybridizing.

The selection of 249 plates takes the viewer with Steichen from 1895 to 1959, from the days of make-your-own gum-bichromate printing paper to Kodachrome, from early gropings through portrait, fashion, commercial, military, “extra-curricular” photography to creation of theme shows and, by implication, motion picture photography (the dust-jacket photo of Steichen shows him with an Arriflex).

These plates, many of which are old friends, as collected and displayed in this book, are a quickie course in the development of photography during Steichen’s lifetime to date. They show me Steichen as an eclectic photographer, moving freely in and out of the realms of artiness, documentation, realism, individualism, photography as a mass phenomenon . . . willing even today to try something new.

I suspect this very versatility has been responsible for the tragedies which are today’s goal for most “exhibition photographers”. For I see Steichen’s work, fresh in its time, as having been seized on and imitated by hordes of uninspired producers of god-awfuls which, dear god, wear with pride the colored ribbons of PSA or SR or Pop Photo or . . .

I fear many of these producers of nauseas are not aware that Steichen did, better than they could hope to and with resources they probably would not be able to use at all, what they think they are doing— and he did it first. I am grateful for one thing in the selection of plates: there isn’t one of the cup and saucer.

Steichen’s verbal contribution to the book covers 52 pages, broken into fifteen snippets ranging in length from two to six pages and stuck between large sections of plates.

There are some who differ with those portions of the text covering the Photo-Secessionist days and “291”. I am not competent to. But I am able to be startled that the last reference to direct contact with Stieglitz was after the sinking of the Lusitania: “When Stieglitz said, ‘It served them right. They were warned in advance that the ship would be sunk,’ I decided then and there that I wanted to get into the war on the American side.” Thereafter Steiglitz exists only as a memory, to judge from this writing.

I am very unhappy with the design of this book. It was not until my third reading that I realized the blocks of plates had been designed for maximum display effectiveness, while the text is chronological. Thus, in Section 8, if one wishes to refer to the plates in conjunction with the text, he must find them in this order: 180, 125, 124, 140, 129, 113, 119, 114, 116, 117, 126, 143, 128, 141, 118, 145-152, 145, 150, 155, 156.

The text pages are not numbered and there is no evident consistency about the location of plate numbers and titles. This does make finding a given plate a bit of a game.

However, the book does give me a definitive work on Steichen, and I’m glad to have it. As my wife said after we visited the Louvre, “There, we don’t have to do that again.”

Edward L. Gates

Nancy Newhall/ANSEL ADAMS: A BIOGRAPHY 1. THE ELOQUENT LIGHT

Sierra Club, San Francisco 1963 166 pp. 87 Illusts. $20.00

Of the many conservation groups interested in the enjoyment and preservation of wilderness, wildlife, forests and streams, one of the leading is the Sierra Club founded by the great American naturalist, John Muir, in 1892. Through its efforts, singly and in conjunction with other like-minded organizations, many of the national forests and national parks we now take for granted would have perished at the hands of greedy land speculators.

There are various methods available for spreading the gospel of conservation. One of them, the publication of books, especially books of photographs, has become most effective in reaching and moving an usually apathetic public into action. By publishing in the past, fine volumes of colored and of black and white photographs, the Sierra Club has set a standard difficult to beat. And now, with the publication of “The Eloquent Light” it has once again proved itself supreme in this specialized field.

In this first volume, Nancy Newhall, an eminent writer on things photographic, pays homage to the Sierra Club’s most famous, most active and most articulate evangelist, who, also, happens to be by fateful circumstance, a musician, a writer, a poet, a teacher, and a photographer. This incredible man of divers talents, Ansel Adams, is a dear friend and erstwhile collaborator of Mrs. Newhall’s on other literary occasions. We are fortunate that it was Mrs. Newhall who took on the task of this biography for she is obviously as fond of the great out-doors as is Adams. She was, also, literally “there” when some of the events took place and therefore, does, in part, present us with a first hand account. Additionally, she has expertly extracted pertinent paragraphs from unpublished letters by leading personalities of the photographic world of the thirties, and, together with excerpts from the personal interviews she has had with many of them, she has created an image, not only of a man, but of an era.

It was at an early age that Adams developed his love for the High Sierras. He said “. . . From that day in 1916” (he was 14 at the time) “my life has been colored and modulated by the great earthgesture of the Sierra”. And so it was. Every year he returns to Yosemite—an annual ritual of rebirth and regeneration.

It was also at this time that he received his first camera. Though his first prints were disappointing, this was the beginning of a photographic career that would include the formulation of a photographic system that to this day sustains many photographers, commercially and artistically.

For himself, Adams the photographer, set certain standards, primary among them being, the rendition of natural forms with utmost photographic clarity and objectivity. Within the self-imposed limitations of his standards, he succeeded admirably. His selfdiscipline and his knowledge of the craft of photography have made of him a technician without rival. Stieglitz wrote of Adams’ earlier book SIERRA NEVADA: THE JOHN MUIR TRAIL, “I am an idolater of perfect workmanship of any kind. And this is truly perfect workmanship. I am elated.” This book, incidently, among others, was an important part of the conservationists campaign for the establishment of national parks, specifically, Kings Canyon National Park.

Simultaneously with his conservation work for the Sierra Club, Adams kept up a voluminous correspondence with photographers whose belief in “pure” photography bound them together spiritually. Among these were Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham and along with four other photographers they formed themselves into a flexible, informal organization “Group f/64”. Their purpose was to exhibit together on occasion, to stimulate interest in real photography, and to encourage new talent. They lasted as a group until they were convinced their fight for pure photography was won. All told, the battle was over in less than three years.

It is interesting to note the sharply incisive vignettes of some of the photographically im-

portant people: Edward Weston, the artist-photographer, always one jump ahead of the wolves, desperately groping to find himself in his chosen medium, and when in despair, finding solace and encouragement in letters from Adams; Steichen, who fifteen years after the first great war is still “Colonel” Steichen, and, who in 1933, cannot spare a moment from his commercial photography to view a young man’s portfolio; Stieglitz, the artist, the idealist, the fighter, who said “Photography is my passion, the search for truth my obsession” but who, in the miseries of eld age capitulated to the pragmatism of the compromisers; Beaumont Newhall, who along with Adams, humbly assumes the “mantle” with Stieglitz’s blessings. There were others, Paul Strand, Charles Sheeler, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Georgia O’Keefe, and many more who lived the history and who became the legends of the twenties and thirties.

Considering the grand manner in which this volume one is written, and, also, that it encompasses only the years 1902-1938, it would be more appropriate to consider this an affectionate tribute to an extraordinary man rather than a definitive biography. I feel, in this volume, because of the friendship that exists between the biographer and her subject, the objectivity necessary for such an undertaking is missing. But there is still time. Perhaps in the volumes forthcoming this deformity of personal vision will be corrected.

The book itself is a handsome volume, well printed, with reproductions as close to the original prints, I’m sure, as is mechanically possible. Hpwever, the prints that make up the double page spreads cannot be possibly appreciated in this bisected format and, as such, seem an extravagant waste. It also would be helpful if the date of execution was included along with the title of every print reproduced.

Carl Siembab

"I WOULD LIKE TO LIVE FAR, FAR AWAY"

Great things are done when Men & Mountains meet; This is not done by Jostling in the Street.

William Blake, one poet who ‘saw Things,’ wrote the world’s best ecological epigram, above quoted. There is no evidence that Mr. Blake ever visited the mountains of the English Lake District; or that he got much further above sea-level than the Vale of Health in the hills of Hampstead over the Thames to the northwest of London. He was a city man all his 70 years, except for three years lived in a cottage on the Sussex coast at Felpham. “Meat is cheaper than in London, but the sweet air & the voices of winds, trees & birds, & the odours of the happy ground, make it a dwelling for immortals.” But out of three years’ Slumber by the Ocean, comes this from Blake’s Spirit, in “Auguries of Innocence”:

The wanton Boy that kills the Fly Shall feel the Spider’s enmity.

Which is one of the first and finest evidences of what Marston Bates calls the Ecological Conscience in poetry. Yet Blake complained that the Visions deserted him at Felpham . . . An interesting question is, does Ansel Adams, who has been to so many mountains and lakes and dawns, see them any ‘better’ than Blake’s mental constructs? It is probably a foolish question—and it maybe has as many answers as people to ponder it. I would, however, like to use it to initiate my own thoughts in response to The Eloquent Light.

I find it terribly difficult to make an ‘integrated’ response to The Eloquent Light—the response I feel I should be making. And this further trouble: the Aura which emanates and insists one prostrate oneself before the mystique of St. Ansel of the Sierra. (Per usual, this sanctification is not Adams’ fault or own doing.) But, one feels it and I am not going to walk on eggs or refuse to let my name be spelled mud with a small m by denying that I have run into this attitude many times. You know, now let’s all sing together, “LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT.” In America you spend 40 years sweating it out in relatively free, happy obscurity. Then TIME calls you ‘The Dean,” some soporific Institute pays you hush money in the form of a stupid prize 25 years too late to be of real help, and urbane fashion eases you onto the shelf. Viz., Carl Ruggles, whose noble “Of Men & Mountains” no one ever hears. Gray Eminences, like palavering, retired Republican Presidents, are a drag. The authentic creators do not age, or strut their hoary charisma and senility—-Ives, Ruggles, Varese; William CarloS Williams; Wallace Stevens; Burchfield, Sheeler, Davis, Knaths, Dickinson; Strand, Stieglitz, Weston. Nor will Adams, if left in peace. He lives in the present. ALL! HERE! NOW!, said the Rev. Martin Luther King, asking for consideration in another area. I call on Bishop Euhemerus to cut us all down to human size, and keep us there! . . . “the frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact.”—Thoreau, in the Journals. 1849.)

Mr. David Brewer, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, in the preface to The Eloquent Light, says: “That Ansel Adams came to be recognized as one of the great photographers of this century is a tribute to the places that informed him.” I would argue to the contrary that it must be the quality of his vision only—for too many people have photographed mountains too miserably. Places exist primarily in our imaginations —not just ‘out there.’

Well, take the Sun. Blake says this in “A Vision of the Last Judgment”: “I assert for My Self that I do not behold the outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance & not Action; it is as the dirt upon my feet, No part of Me. ‘What,’ it will be Question’d, ‘When the Sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?’ O no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.’ I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning a sight. I look thro’ it & not with it.” What do you do with a real Vatic Bard like that? The point is, he says it so bloody well—with such power of words—that you have to believe him. Blake is asserting again in that passage his Good Olde Tyme Religion: that we are atoned by our imagination. We may be put at-one with, for instance, a mountain. Reading his words in The Eloquent Light, you realize that Ansel Adams believes this too, very humbly and very deeply.

Lest I bring down all the wrath of the Faithful, as it seems to have befallen Lincoln Kirstein when he wrote on Walker Evans, let me bracket Ansel Adams with Blake again—they are great souls, and now and then they get off a line or a photograph that’s been worth waiting for all your life. “Praise is the Practice of Art”—that’s one of those lines. It is also what Adams does. He is bedded down in Nature like some organic process. Yet, I must say this, that valuable and humane as the book at hand is, it does not do for me what I had hoped it would. The mote may be in only my own eye, that only I can’t see? Maybe the quality of the plates leaves something to be desired? I would say so—and I’m not calling for high gloss and thick varnishing—, though the Exhibit Format provided by the Sierra Club is most handsome. One can cite examples where the results do not seem to do justice to the originals: “Aspens, New Mexico, 1958,” “Mount Mitchell, King’s Canyon National Park,” “Owens Valley,” and “Leaf, Frost, Stump—October Morning, Yosemite Valley,” to name four. I’m guessing, and possibly I am spoiled by the dazzling reproductions attained in the case of the two recent Eliot Porter books. I bought 15 copies of those to give as presents. The Eloquent Light is not illuminating me like that.

Once I wrote in Aperture of the ‘landscapes’ of Frederick Sommer. Certain readers were incensed by Mr. Sommer’s singular use of his camera-eye for recording purposes—as though one of William Burroughs’ alien viruses had filtered across the galaxy and was looking at us in inhuman terms. I defend that right, as Blake spoke of his Corporeal or Vegetative Eye and his refusal to limit what it saw. Despite his frightening vision, Mr. Sommer is not a Super-Cosmic Titanism; he is a peaceful, law-abiding, etc. citizen of Prescott, Arizona —and the Quickest Pataphysician West of the Rio Grande. Brett Weston, for one, cannot stomach him. His father had a whole portfolio of Sommer’s prints but I do not know what he thought of them. This brings us into the area of ‘technique.’ I don’t think BW could deny that Sommer is a superb maker of prints and fully equipped to achieve what he is looking for. Brett Weston is a superb printer also—California seems to spawn them (California, plus the intervention of Weston, Adams, and Minor White), like it spawns fine private-presses. Obviously, it is the use to which the technique is put that’s the important thing. Photographers of the capacity of Edward and Brett Weston and Ansel Adams damn well do not need to be patronized or cast down by one observer’s limitations. What I have tried to do is show my spiritual sympathy for the mountaineer—whether photographer or cabbage farmer—, and be candid about my enthusiasm or lack of it when confronted with particular images. Who presumes to be more ultimate than that better go into ethics and stay out of the EyeBusiness.

If I haven’t left friend and foe both back hundreds of words, let me note that Mrs. Newhall’s documentary-college biography is a form I like very much. It has been employed by Jay Leyda brilliantly in his logs on Melville and his works & days of Miss Dickinson. Mrs. Newhall’s effort in assembling the materials has been prodigious and one cannot imagine anything more scrupulous and devoted. The quotations from Adams, from the elder Weston, and from Stieglitz make a wonderfully revealing and informing chronicle of these men:

Adams, reflecting on the American mode of appreciation as being “dominantly theatrical—often oblivious of the subtle beauty in quiet, uncomplex things.”

Adams: “I find myself brooding over rocks and clouds and Things of No Value that would make good pictures. I remember campfires, a few gigantic mountains to inflate my ego—and a few very long miles to deflate it again.”

Weston: “Photography as a creative expression—or what you will—must be seeing plus; seeing alone would mean factual recording,—the illustrator of catalogues does that. The ‘plus’ is the basis of all arguments on ‘what is art.’ ”

Adams to Cedric Wright: “I do not regret being out with you for some little time in the hills. Life is very complex; we are all in a kind of box with cast-iron sides which prevents us from touching the essences of real living. But perhaps ‘real’ living is just trying to make the inside of the box as rich as possible. On the other hand, Weston seems to achieve a Real Swell Life by eliminating everything that is not essential and going ahead with his creative life . . . We live in a complexity that appalls me—and I do not know a way to escape without doing a lot of damage ... I gotta see you . . . you are one of the people that have a wide-angle and long-focus point of view all at once.”

Adams to Stieglitz: “The picture here is amusing—if it weren’t tragic. Yosemite is one of the great gestures of the Earth. It isn’t that it is merely big—it is also beautiful, with a beauty that is as solid and apparent as the granite rock in which it is carved. The U.S. owns and administers it; a Public Service Company makes it possible for you and me to eat and sleep in it. This Company with the steam-roller momentum of Big Business, needs to bring people to it ... It is just like jazzing up the Poeme d’Extase of Scriabin—a little hot rhythm, and there you are.”

Finally, Stieglitz: “It is good for me to know that there is Ansel Adams loose somewhere in this world of ours. I’m throwing no bouquets, merely stating a bald fact.”

So, now, the Reviewer’s Summation, Resolution & Quotation:

1) Anyone interested in the art and in a creative man’s effort to place himself in a viable mindscape must acquire The Eloquent Light and see it for him-or-herself—I hope with a less scattered insight than mine. We each of us face an horrendously dis-integrated society at every instant. If I didn’t have mountains and were forced, say, to listen to the barrage of shit that most Americans endure every day, I’d either capitulate and retire to the local madhouse, or buy a boat ticket for the Orkneys. Statistics will kill you, so it is vital the few people who care know the coherent work of men like Ansel Adams and of the Sierra Club. Or, we’ll soon all be seeing God’s Own Junkyard metastasized in with a handful of worn, seedy Nature-Ghettos. Photographers should be able to see this. I am more anxious that the poets see it, for the Poet is one of those entrusted with putting things together. Adams is a fecund source. I can imagine some photographers grumbling that poets ought to stick the hell to poetry—this essay being proof enough of such wisdom. But, ecology is the principle we’re involved with.

2) Personal Resolution: to walk the Muir Trail, and in the Sierra, during the summer of 1965. And SEE YOSEMITE AND DIE! and buy an Ansel Adams print.

3) Now, we turn it back to Mr. Blake for a final epigram, the one called “Cromek Speaks”:

I always take my judgment from a Fool Because his judgment is so very Cool,

Not prejudic’d by feelings great or small. Amiable state! he cannot feel at all.

Jonathan Williams

Cartier-Bresson/PHOTOGRAPHS BY CARTIER-BRESSON

Grossman Publishers, New York 1963 68 pp. 47 Illusts. Paperback $2.50

Henri Cartier-Bresson has caused to come into existence a remarkable number of memorable images in thirty years of camerawork. The current publication, small in size and modest in price brings the 1947 version of the book published by the Museum of Modern Art up to 1961. A highly satisfactory summary of a man’s images is accomplished in forty seven images.

From the student stand point or those of us not employed in the Space Race how rewarding it would be if similiar compact visual summaries were available in book stores of a dozen of the other leading photographers ... in addition, of course, to the current expensive ones.

The two essays of introduction are informative about the philosophy and creative concepts of the photographer and add much of value to the buyer. Lincoln Kerstein describes the Cartier-Bresson “principia photographica by which many other pictures and photographers may be considered.” Beaumont Newhall describes minutely the working technique. Because Cartier-Bresson is one of the handful of photographers who can write about their own work significantly, one could wish that his own essay in the Decisive Moment might have been included, or better still a new essay of his written for the occasion.

The Photographs of Cartier-Bresson puts an unfamiliar dimension on the word “ordinary”. Perhaps that is the clue-magic to something about him.

AT. W.

Paul Strand/TIR A'MHURAIN: OUTER HEBRIDES

Photographs by Paul Strand with Commentary

by Basil Davidson

MacGibbon and Kee, London 1962 151 pp. 96 Illusts. $7.50

“Tir a’Mhurain”, the Land of Bent Grass, is the Gaelic epithet for these anciently inhabited rocks off Scotland’s North Atlantic coast. For centuries in the Hebrides human life has been scratched from the thin soil, sheared from the backs of sheep, and trawled from the sometimes treacherous waters of the Little Minch between the outer islands and the Island of Skye. In 1941 these rock shores hooked a grounded shipload of Scotch whiskey, leading to that spirited charade with the Excisemen known first in Gaelic ballad, then in the novel Whiskey Galore, finally in a British movie of that title, although toasted as “Tight Little Island” in its American showings. On these storm and landlord bludgeoned islands lives a spirited breed of men with weathered faces and souls, their brows and eye corners clenched against wind, forced emigration, religious and linguistic intolerance, and human injustice, but their mobile mouths ready at the all-night “ceilidh” to gulp lethean whiskey, to shout stomping dance rhythms, or to spout ancient and sometimes improvised Gaelic folk songs. Even now that their heathered and weathered rocks support a modern rocket range, they survive. Here, as elsewhere in the Twentieth century world, old human patterns are being swept and twisted by change, may soon be only silvered traces in the emulsions of the human memory.

In 1954 Paul Strand spent three months documenting this still sturdy and spirited community. Although a sumptuous image of Hebridean horses at the sea’s edge appeared four years later in Beaumont and Nancy Newhall’s MASTERS OF PHOTOGRAPHY, it is only after nearly a decade that the full harvest of Strand’s season on South-Uist, Benbecula and Eriskay can be viewed generally. Inevitably one thinks back on TIME IN NEW ENGLAND, LA FRANCE DE PROFIL and the Italian village document, UN PAESE.

Echoed in TIR A’MHURAIN are familiar Strand images of fractured rocks and cracked and gullied wood — the bench marks of time; the ambivalent sea and frowning sky; stiff and florid or simple gravestones; errant reflections of old glass windows with puttying to shame a mud-wasp; doorways pounded through stubborn stone into pungent dark caves with their plants, iron stoves, and lace curtains; the practical solid geometry of haymow, firewood or peat hoard; the centripetal twist of ground-loving plants and the centrifuge of blossoming trees or potted plants; the pulpy seaweed that can drag a man out of air and life; the control lines and tools of labor in the elemental furrows of earth or water; matrix or labyrinth of net, sail sheet or horse harnessing — “equivalents” for complex responses of mind and muscle. All these and more echo down the years from Gaspe, Mexico, Maine and Vermont, from Biscay Bay to the Pyrenees and the valley of the Po.

Yet there are also differences: no

church building stands against the sky here, only a personal devotional memento or two; studies of individual men, women and children crowd these pages — about four of every ten pictures, whereas TIME IN NEW ENGLAND, for example, had about one in ten; but only one gathering of neighbors and friends, a decrease from the French and Italian documents. Single human artifacts of flintiness and erosion are correctly near the center of focus in the Hebrides, especially if found amid those materials and things used so cunningly to support a difficult life. But these people have also been set in a community of work and of play. Their vigorous waulking of tweeds and their gusty shrilling of the pipes are too weakly reflected. There is not even the huddled community of black houses or the crowdedness of harbored fishing boats. Everything is single here, although it was not so in the calculus of their survival. Amid the wrinkles of these faces, so eloquent of their song “Tha Mulad”, “there is sorrow”, one does find evidence of the crinkles of a viable community spirit, but is it not understated here?

How thankful we should be, however, for strong images sensitively composed and often revealingly juxtaposed. At random: stone anchored thatch browing over a deepset old window that is lace curtained half way up its enigmatic darkness and, opposite, Kate Steele whose white hair and cracked clay beetle over dark and glinting eyes; tattered and seamed Neil MacDonald confident and tough, a clenched right fist half revealed and, opposite, a crackled tough mess of heather; pier master and rock-armed sea; sheep on the moor and tweed protected crofters; a firm-jawed young man with a religious medal and, opposite, house plants behind the talisman of window glass and peeling paint; curious heifers, human and bovine; young Angus Peter McIntyre looking out through puzzled and troubled eyes (how like the Gondeville boy of LA FRANCE DE PROFIL) and, opposite, a trawler with its mess of lines and lights and vents and then a small human figure in the corner; and tarpots, bold zippers, a little girl bulging her tweed coat, old couples fused by common experience, and the great shaggy Daliburgh bull monumental against the sky with summer’s bright field flowers at his feet. These and many more are the riches that Paul Strand has brought back from the Western Isles.

Basil Davidson’s smooth and factual text details the historical and contemporary troubles of the islands, glides occasionally into personal encounter and closes with a strong plea for the survival of their ancient Gaelic culture. The text does not make the same counterpoint with the photographs that grew out of the literary and documentary passages in the New England, French and Italian books. The present volume would have benefited from a dynamic interplay with some such set pieces.

TIR A’MHURAIN is a beautifully made book with large and crisply detailed reproductions. Ironically, its printing was done behind the Iron Curtain, the very existence of which has brought threatening rockets to this land of bent grass and its human “thinking reeds”, both of which Paul Strand has fixed for us in these photographs.

Robert Koch

Alvin Langdon Coburn/PORTFOLIO OF 16 PHOTOGRAPHS

Introduction by Nancy Newhall George Eastman House, Rochester 1962 21 pp. 16 Reproductions Loose in Portfolio $12.50

At twenty-one Alvin Langdon Coburn was described by Alfred Stieglitz as “possibly the youngest star in the firmament” of photographic artists associated with the Photo-Secession. He went on to be, as Nancy Newhall’s Introduction to this portfolio points out almost sixty years later, “a friend of the Cubists, Vorticists, and Imagists” and one who “worked with the literary titans of the day toward a new medium of words and pictures.”

In 1917 Coburn’s deliberately abstract “vortographs” anticipated the “rayographs” and “photograms” of the better known Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy, helping to form a troika grandparentage for much photography of the last couple of decades. Then Coburn went into a personal götterdämmerung of “astrological portraiture”, Celtic myth and religious mysticism for thirty years, only to be remembered or rediscovered in the 1950’s in retrospective and new exhibitions, in his talks on the B.B.C., and in a light patter of articles.

Now, with this portfolio of his work from 1904 to 1917, The George Eastman House continues for its Members a published examination of “photography as a fine art” — to borrow the sub-title of its first monograph in this series, PHOTO-SECESSION by Robert Doty, 1960. The subject of the present publication was represented in that earlier work by four photographs and by Clarence H. White’s study of the photographer and his mother. These sixteen handsome reproductions are mounted separately on 11 x 14 inch sheets that provide appropriately generous margins and place for discreet labels. The reproductions seem to go far toward reproducing the tonal qualities of the originals.

The selection consists of searching portraits of literary men: G. K. Chesterton, protean, a latter day Balzac; Mark Twain in 1908 with showman’s white suit and corona of hair but also flashing the tight anger of his disillusionment, all against a Japanese-like background; the intense bardic ancientness of the young William Butler Yeats. And there are city scapes: the crowds that “flowed” over London Bridge and would soon haunt another aged youngster, T. S. Eliot; Henry James’ murky London with its Georgian facade; the sun-limned industrial sheds of Pittsburgh with their interchangeable parts; the newly experienced abstracting heights of young skyscraper New York; the intense individualism of Parisian roofs and chimneys. Add to these a sensitive portrait of musical antiquarian Arnold Dolmetsch in 1916 and the following year the glistening wedges of light in one of Colburn’s pioneering “vortographs”.

The selection is representative of his work during the period covered, but there are of course other pictures that one might wish here: despite the reproduction of one in Doty’s book, a portrait of G. B. Shaw, in response to curiosity raised by his interest in young Coburn and his posing as the first of the long line of “Men of Mark”; or one of the mature Henry James with whom the young photographer had a close and sympathetic association described in Mrs. Newhall’s account. And, not unnaturally, one would like to see at least one of the works of the eye and hand of the reverent, mystical and durable Coburn who at 75 years of age could say, “I still climb mountains — and with a camera — and . . . I havé made over 1,000 exposures during the last three years!” Not even one work for those more than forty years following the “Vortograph, 1917” which is the final plate in this portfolio?

Nancy Newhall offers about 15,000 words of factual and sympathetic chronology of Coburn’s development as a camera artist. This Introduction sets each Plate into its context in that development, although for some reason Plate III is out of its chronological niche without any obvious gain in effectiveness of presentation. The writing is nicely seasoned with direct quotations from Coburn himself and about him by the likes of G. B. Shaw and Ezra Pound. There are notes on the processes that he used and a good Selected Bibliography. The Introduction constitutes a fitting companion to the plates, both in its text and in the quality of its printing.

Robert Koch

Eliot Porter/*iN WILDERNESS IS THE PRESERVATION OF THE WORLD"

Selections and Photographs by Eliot Porter. Forward by David Brower with an Introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch

Sierra Club, San Francisco 1962 160 pp. $25.00

Eliot Porter/THE PLACE NO ONE KNEW: GLEN CANYON ON THE COLORADO

Photographs by Eliot Porter. Edited and forward by David Brower Sierra Club, San Francisco 1963 170 pp. $25.00

Probably no other conservation minded and active group similiar to the Sierra Club of San Francisco has ever had such compelling ammunition as its list of recent illustrated books to show what we, as Americans inherit of the land, and what we have in our blindness destroyed. Eliot Porter’s contribution to this growing demand for the wise use of our land and water is great.

Although color films have been readily available for twenty-five years, few serious pictorialists have explored in depth the color potentials. Eliot Porter has so explored and the rewards of his efforts are manifest in THE PLACE NO ONE KNEW and IN WILDERNESS. Unlike most color photographers who terminate their involvement at the transparency stage, Porter nursed his vision from transparency to dye transfer and finally to fourcolor lithography. He searched for and eventually found a publisher concerned more with the vital importance of the project rather than its potential profit.

IN WILDERNESS, the first of the two books, was inspired seventeen years ago by the observation of his wife that his photography of New England landscape and Thoreau’s writing were similar in spirit. From this impetus, Porter began consciously photographing for a book to both illustrate and complement Thoreau’s concepts of man’s relation to nature. The result is a fulfillment of intention. The snap of a winter morning, the luxuriant verdancy of Spring, sounds of insects, and the smell of new life are evoked with gentle images. Occasionally, a dissonant color reminds one of ink and not sap. Here Porter’s vision is closer to the documentary landscape photographers such as William Jackson, and somewhat less lyrical than Peter Henry Emerson or Ansel Adams. Porter’s is any moment, not the special moment of Adams. Some of the photographs are the voice of the naturalist and ornithologist (Porter’s early training), some the nature poet, but all speak with tenderness.

The gentle lyrics of IN WILDERNESS are in sharp contrast to the surging themes of THE PLACE NO ONE KNEW. Both books have a similiar design, the large beautifully proportioned picture book. The message in each is different. The place that no one will know again, Glen Canyon, existed as a magnificent earth sculpture carved by the Colorado River in the matrix of geological time. The photographs were made shortly before the canyon was flooded to make a reservoir ... a reservoir that the conservationists feel is not needed. The message is simple—paradise destroyed. The text includes a number of selections from many writers on the subject of conservation and man’s spiritual rapport with the earth. Some of the text is general, some specific to Glen Canyon, all of it adds up to an inditement of shortsightedness and our rejection of man’s spiritual heritage;

The photographs in this book are special. One feels that the earth usurped Porter’s vision and that Porter was willing to let it. The images allow us to catch a glimpse of the spiritual values of the land. The images make us envy Porter’s obvious contact with the “moments” of spirit, of “breath” and breathing. One of the meanings of “inspiration” is the breath of Spirit nourishing the inner man. We see in the images the massive rhythms, the explosive color relationships that are hardly believable until one has seen them in person, the scale that seems to become spacial ambiguities. Porter saw the same and experienced the intangible silence that brings these shapes into being. Porter was not as detached in Glen Canyon as he was in New England. Here the poet’s voice is louder than the naturalist’s. If at times he could have used Adams’ ability to articulate and orient space and scale, still the totality is magnificent. The pain of a loss to humanity is felt. A place that Porter proves reflected and affirmed spirit will soon be drowned beneath surfboards and motor boats.

The text asserts that man collectively must preserve the heritage of his land and wilderness areas. But is this possible? Since men almost willingly surrender the birthright of their consciousness, does it not follow that they will continue to destroy their Edens.

John Upton

Manuel Komroff, Nathan Resnick, Konrad Cramer/THE THIRD EYE

Walker and Company, New York 1962 96 pp. 79 Illusts. $7.50

According to the author’s text THE THIRD EYE is the eye of creation. “A camera has one eye. It can record the outer surface of the visual world. The photographer carries with him a second eye. This is the eye of selection. The Artist has a Third Eye, the eye of creative imagination.” Most of the author’s words and quotations from poets, painters, writers, emphasize the relationship between the two discontinuous realities known to man as inner and outer.

“For art is an excursion into the unknown” they write and then ask, “Can photography venture the unknowns? Can it break the barrier of reality?” With their opening words Komroff, Resnick and the late Cramer clarified what they hoped the camera might do in their hands.

By and large the images of these three well known men are in the Experimental tradition of photography. Manual Komroff is a famous writer and editor. Nathan Resnick is a Professor of Art and Director of Libraries at Long Island University. The late Konrad Cramer was a ranking painter. So all three have stepped aside momentarily from their usual professions to explore the unknown with a camera. The creative imagination of the artist, such as we customarily see in the work of the photo Experimentalists, is everywhere apparent. In their search for significant form, that is forms which in their own right are emotionally and intuitively expressive, they touch on straight photography and scratched the surface of practically all of the very numerous deviational techniques known to photography.

The implication that the words ’’third eye” extends into the esoteric is not lost on the three photographer-authors. “The inner world is timeless.” “An inner and emotional world is truely a universal world.” Penetrating outer reality is a very serious matter in art as well as mysticism. For example Evelyn Underhill in her superbly well documented book MYSTICISM included references to the artist and mysticism. And she is not alone in claiming that how is it that these artists who have striven towards the venture into the unknown have always remained behind cultivating a wondrous garden just inside the gate on the path that leads to the mountain top? Alfred Stieglitz and Alvin Langdon Cobum are two of a handful of photographers in the past who have pushed the camera unmercifully in the pursuit of “spirit” or “intensified consciousness” or however they name their Holy Grail.

When reviewers picture exhibitions get hung up on frames, not see pictures — when write, make puppy talk.

Komroff, Resnick and Cramer seem to have been more modest in their search and ventures into the unknown, as the titles of their images indicate: Merlin’s Retreat (Cramer), The Ghost of Bread (Komroff), The Birth of Eve {Resnick). From the artistic standpoint had the three men explored the work of the classic photo Experimentalists such as Coburn’s Vortographs, made with prisms in 1917, or Man Ray’s Rayographs, the work of Moholy-Nagi and the Bauhaus, contemporaries such as Val Telberg, Harry Callahan, Frederick Sommer . . . there are enough contemporaries under 40 working in the experimental tradition to fill a banquet hall with hungry artists . . . some of their not so primitive as sophomoric pictures such as the Face of Destruction would be resting in their appropriate place as visual experiments that might lead to later successes.

Among the experimentations tried out by the authors of the THIRD EYE was the regular late afternoon Martini conference. “This not only helped enlarge the philosophical scope of our work, but in the review of techniques for making something better became apparent.”

The matter of the esoteric implication of the “third eye” is considered by this reviewer to be so important that he had every reason to take the cocktail conference quite seriously. Any means at all, camera or Martini, by which the cast iron hoops of outer reality might be broken, must be taken seriously because the difficulty is great. Since the Martini conference was pertinent to making the images, it soon became clear that the image should be viewed in the same condition. This reviewer remembers a sign he saw in a photographer’s lab one day, “When all else fails, read the directions.” So he thanks the three authors for including the directions in their book by which the reader can know the state to achieve before viewing these experimental pictures.

So this reviewer took the advice to heart, well not exactly to heart. And herein follows a report of what he saw as the suggested viewing state progressed. In general the pictures appeared vastly different than when seen in the normal state of a kind of dazed wakefulness. The clarity that the first Martini brings to one’s vision is

amazing. The various images brighten, take on depth, beginning to glow with meaning. With the second Martini, a great sense of rapport grew, one image called the Demon of Destruction that had earlier seemed especially inept became a great statement of truth. Not being able to hold his liquor very well before the fourth cauld be poured, the reviewer had stopped seeing altogether. He must also report that never before has he observed the stimulating effect of camera images on gin, vermouth, and olive reach such deep penetrations into the Unknown. And he also concluded that perhaps Evelyn Underhill had never looked at Art in the proper state.

PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERATURE: A Bibliographic Guide

Albert Boni, Editor and an Editorial Board of Specialists Morgan and Morgan, New York 1963 335 pp. no Illusts. $22.50

PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERATURE, edited by Albert Boni, is an imposing book in respect to stated objectives, list of editors, and title. The full title, which we assume will seldom be used except on the jacket and title page of the book itself, gives the reader a good clue as to the contents — Photographic Literature: An International Bibliographic Guide to General and Specialized Literature on Photographic Processes; Techniques; Theory; Chemistry; Physics; Apparatus; Materials and Applications; Industry; History; Biography; Aesthetics.

The objective of Mr. Boni and the eight associate editors in compiling this book is “to provide a one-volume reference tool to serve the widest variety of research requirements.” Lack of selectivity of purpose — the attempt to cover all aspects of photography, from the 15th century to the present day, for all readers including beginning amateurs, professional photographers and research scientists is a major weakness of this book. Mr. Boni recognizes the impossibility of providing information on every book or article relative to photography that has ever been published. To do this, he states, would require 100 or more volumes. A crucial question now presents itself — How well have the editors edited? As might be expected where nine people are involved, and where their familiarity with the vast amount of material available must vary from intimate to remote, the effect is one of inconsistency.

A researcher who is interested in the subject of “Sensitivity” will find nearly three pages of references to books, journals, abstract bulletins, and other publications, plus information directing the reader to sources of 115 additional references, and four cross references within PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERATURE. There are nearly five pages of references on “Emulsions”, and there are two pages of patents and a page and a half of references on “Electrolytic and Electrostatic Processes.” Some of the listings contain abstracts of the original material.

At the other extreme of thoroughness of coverage, we find only one direct listing for “Depth of Field” and one listing for “Fashion Photography.” “Perspective” has no direct listings, but the reader is referred to the Royal Photographic Society Library Catalogue, which in turn has five references, the latest of which was published in 1937. This is surprising when one observes that it is difficult to find a book on general photography that does not consider the topic of perspective. One gains a strong impression that topics of a technical, scientific or historical nature have been given more careful and exhaustive treatment than topics that would be of concern to picture makers. “Architectural Photography” has 7 references, ’’Commercial Photography” — 10, “Bird Photography” — 19, “News Photography” — 21, and “Portrait Photography” — 26. There are no periodicals among these references, and the books do not appear to have been selected with great care. The publications of Yousuf Karsh, for example, are not included in the listing under the “Portrait Photography” heading.

Users of PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERATURE will find cause both for disappointment and for elation. Maximum utilization requires access to a good library, as the included abstracts are too infrequent to be relied upon. Features that add to the convenience and usefulness are the frequent cross references, the markers identifying works of unusual significance, the list of publications in the “Abbreviations” section, and the “Author Index.” It is hoped that readers will send suggestions to Mr. Boni, as he requests, so that future editions will become increasingly more useful.

Leslie Stroebel

(The forty odd references under “Aesthetics” are tripled or more by the cross-references to types of photography, individual photographers and publications. Articles in little known or obscure periodicals, but which are important to the thinking in photography are included. The section is comprehensive. ED.)

Ansel Adams/POLAROID LAND PHOTOGRAPHY MANUAL

A technical handbook Morgan and Morgan, New York 1963 192 pp. 77 Illusts. $5.95

According to the author, “The function of this book is to acquaint the intelligent and serious photographer with some of the essential facts and procedures related to the creative-professional use of the Polaroid Land process.” The Manual does this well, and also, much more.

The book is comprehensive, dealing with the specific features of the Polaroid process and with some of the basic aspects of photography. Included in the specifics are: characteristics of Polaroid film; coating and spotting prints; pre-exposure; 4x5 film packet system; 55 P/N negative; reproduction and copying; and the use of the Polaroid system in teaching photography. Such basics of photography as ‘visualization’, artificial lighting, flare, filters, and perhaps the most unusual item — the use and mis-use of exposure meters — are discussed. Besides distinguishing between various types of light meters, their use, their relationship to each other, and the relationships of meter readings to camera settings and ASA speed, Adams cautions against alarm when various meters disagree under identical conditions of use. He states that, “. . . exposure readings will vary, as most meters are designed for particular use with ‘built-in’ calibrations designed to overcome the particular errors encountered ‘in the field’. He might have cautioned, also, that meters of the same make will vary under identical conditions of test.

Those acquainted with the Zone system of photography will find that the author has provided a very detailed procedure for its use in the Polaroid process, fie gives much attention to the precise use of photographic terms which provides clarity throughout the book. Four new terms are introduced as substitutions for terms previously used. These new terms are in close agreement with scientific usage. This is indeed encouraging since it helps to provide, in part, a common language for the photographic illustrator and engineer. One might find fault with the notion that the term luminance, as defined in this book, seems to be restricted to reflected light measurements. Luminances apply also to light sources. An example of this is given on page 45; a meter is placed against an illuminated diffusion screen and luminance readings are taken. There is no reflected light involved in such a measurement.

The book is very attractive, and the text well illustrated by many photographs. A portfolio section of 32 high quality reproductions of Polaroid prints made by some of the best photographers in the field is included, as is a technical data section. (This technical section is the same as the Polaroid section 24 which appears in the Photo-Lab Index and should provide a handy and ready reference.)

A sixteen page illustrated supplement on the principles and use of Polaroid color film has been recently added to the book.

Although at times the author’s language sounds somewhat sales-oriented (e.g. page 73 “. . . they will not distort the smooth progression of values for which the Polaroid Land images is noted.”) the book is well written and is a necessary reference for every photographer, teacher, technician, engineer and scientist desiring to use the Polaroid system to its designed potential.

Richard D. Zakia