Genius in silver

You find out the oddest things on the web; it works out that the largest collection of pictures of one of my favorite photographers (Henri Cartier-Bresson) is in New Orleans. A Gallery for Fine Photography in the French Quarter is a small gallery that hosts in impressive collection of photos from two of the world’s most famous photographers, Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson, in addition to many works by notable photographers. Their inventory is online (registration required), but small web images don’t do these images justice. In visiting the gallery I was surprised at two things: genius is seeing the beauty in anything and modern imaging techniques don’t hold a candle to silver-gelatin prints (black & white to you and me).

In viewing the images by these masters, the pictures by Ansel Adams surprised me the most — my favorite photos were not the typical landscapes you see by Mr. Adams, but instead still life photos. Particularly, Buddhist Grave Markers and Rainbow is moving and beautiful without the need for color to emphasize the rainbow’s impact on the photo. An even further departure from Ansel Adams famous landscapes were Pipes and Gauges and a portrait of Brassai, the former probably would not have worked in color, and the latter certainly could not have benefited from the change.

The exhibited work by Henri Cartier-Bresson was more in keeping with photos I’d seen in the past, and indeed included several of his more famous shots. Certainly, Rue Mouffetard and Behind the Gare St. Lazare are photos I’d seen in books by Cartier-Bresson, but the virtuosity of the photographer is evident in each of these pictures. Mundane in topic matter, each seems to suspend a thought, an expression, and hold the viewers gaze locked in contemplating the moment. The motion of those depicted, the transience of the scene are paradoxically held up and examined for all time; life frozen in silver-gelatin forever.

Also striking about all of the images in this collection is that both men worked in black and white, and the resulting images hold a tonality and richness that is not conveyed in other forms of reproduction. I have yet to see a press or inkjet solution for black and white printing that compares to the range and subtlety provided by the traditional silver-gelatin photographic process. Indeed it is not clear that the sensors in digital cameras can even reproduce the analog smearing effect the speeding gentleman in Behind the Gare St. Lazare achieves. Someday other reproduction methods may capture the feel black and white film, but until then, black and white art photography is still the domain of wet darkroom processing.

If the opportunity ever presents itself, stop in a have a first-hand look at the works of two great men, and the many other brilliant photographers whose work hangs at A Gallery for Fine Photography in New Orleans’ French Quarter.