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In the spring of 1927, photographer Ansel Adams hiked with his friends through the snow at Yosemite National Park in California. The 25-year-old brought along his camera, as he always did, stopping to take a photo he later titled “Monolith, the Face of Half Dome.”

That now-iconic image helped launch his career. Adams went on to become one of the most recognizable faces of American nature photography. 

“Many photographers speak about the fact that you cannot take pictures of the Western landscape today, or the national parks, without automatically thinking in some way of Ansel Adams,” said Sarah Mackay, an assistant curator at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Adams was born in San Francisco; his first solo exhibition was held at the de Young in 1932. And the de Young is hosting the new exhibition, “Ansel Adams: In Our Time.”

Mackay said, “What Ansel Adams advocated for throughout his career was how photography should be considered a fine art in and of itself.”

“For a while, was it not? Were people not taking him seriously?” asked Knighton.

“Yeah, I mean, photography, even into, like, the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, was always kind of struggling to be considered a fine art medium,” Mackay replied. “Today we know it to be, but it was not even throughout a lot of the 20th century.”

Adams was ahead of his time. In the new exhibition, his images are displayed alongside the works of some of the contemporary photographers he influenced, such as Abelardo Morell, who uses a camera obscura tent to capture two views simultaneously. His picture, “Tent-Camera Image on Ground: View of the Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View, Yosemite National Park, 2012,” is actually a photograph of the ground itself with the image projected onto it. 

“What’s so funny about this picture is, Ansel Adams took ‘Clearing Winter Storm’ from a parking lot,” Mackay said.

“Clearing Winter Storm” is typical of Adams’ work – nature shown as a pristine wilderness. 

Contemporary photographers, on the other hand, are more likely to include evidence of a human presence, playing up that contrast. Adams, meanwhile, is best known for the contrasts he created in the darkroom. 

When correspondent Ed Bradley visited him at home in Carmel, California for “Sunday Morning” in 1979, Adams gave a glimpse into his painstaking printmaking process:

Adams: “You see how this is burned out? I discard that.”
Bradley: “What do you do with your rejects?”
Adams: “They are destroyed. Everybody asks me, ‘Oh, don’t throw it away. Even if it isn’t good, I’d like it.’ But I can’t have bad prints out.”
Bradley: “You’re a perfectionist now?”
Adams: “Well, you have to be.”

From 1979, photographer Ansel Adams:

Ansel’s son, Michael Adams, used to accompany his father on his photographic expeditions. Today, he lives in that same Carmel home, where he’s kept the darkroom intact.

Ansel Adams was a classically-trained pianist. He referred to the photographic negative as the “score” and the print as the “performance.” Over his career, he “performed” his photos in several different ways, constantly tweaking exposures in the darkroom.

“I would have to say almost all of the ones that are well-known, there’s a fair amount of manipulation in the dark room to bring up what he wanted you to see,” said Michael. “And he would say, ‘This is not what you’re going to see when you look at this, but it’s what I want you to see.”

But as for what he wanted you to see, Adams was reluctant to get specific. Here’s what he told “Sunday Morning” three years before his death: “People say to me, ‘What did you mean with that picture? What did you have in mind?’ I said, ‘It’s in the picture.’ … If isn’t in the photograph, then I failed.”

With crowds still coming out in droves to see his photographs decades later, and with contemporary artists still riffing on his compositions, it’s clear Ansel Adams succeeded in capturing something timeless. Mackay said of Adams, “His ability to spot those images that were going to be majestic, and iconic, and really just gorgeous, is something that I think differentiates him from so many.”

     
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Story produced by John Goodwin. Editor: Carol Ross. 

After a decade of selling prints of his landscape photographs taken around the world, Mickey Shannon has published his first book and it’s dedicated to his home state.

“Kansas is Beautiful” is a 144-page, hardcover, 10 inch by 13 inch coffee table style book. Shannon, who grew up in Derby and now lives in Goddard, self-published the book. It retails for $64.99 and can be purchased directly from his website at mickeyshannon.com/ksbook as well as at select local bookstores and gift shops.

Another way to see his work is at Exploration Place in downtown Wichita. Museum staff invited Shannon to showcase nearly 30 of his images in their new gallery space outside the Dome Theater. The “Kansas is Beautiful” exhibition opened to coincide with the publication of the book in April and will be on display through at least the end of 2023.

Shannon is a self-taught photographer who bought his first real camera in 2007 and started to sell his prints in 2011. He operates Mickey Shannon Photography and also works in web development at Friends University.

He said he began envisioning publishing a book as early as 2015 but knew he wanted to self-publish to retain creative control of the project. That meant waiting until he could fund the printing of the initial 1,500 copies of the book, which was supported by sales of his fine art prints as well as financial assistance from a Koch Cultural Trust grant.

The book, which debuted in April of this year, features one of his best-selling images on the cover. “Monument Rocks Milky Way Panorama” was the result of at least three nighttime photo missions to Monument Rocks in western Kansas. If you look closely, you’ll see that Shannon appears in the photo under the arch of the massive chalk formation.

“That one really catches people’s attention because there’s a lot of dynamic to it,” he said. “Not only is it a panoramic of the Milky Way over Monument Rocks, but then on the right side of the photo there was a fireball that streaked across the sky. The fireball is really small in the photo because I just caught the tail. end of it. People always ask how I got the light; most think it’s a sun rise image but it’s actually the moon rising behind the Milky Way.”

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In addition to well-known Kansas landmarks like Monument Rocks and urban scenes including Wichita, Shannon also chose images from lesser-traveled locations where he captured backroads, wildflowers, waterfalls and other natural scenes. Within the book’s pages are images filling double page spreads with famous quotes as well as half-page images accompanied by stories behind how Shannon captured the photos.

Next to “The Floodgates Open,” a 2015 image taken after a heavy rainfall of a waterfall not far from Wichita, he writes: “I shot this at Santa Fe Lake, just west of Augusta. This part of Kansas holds a special place in my heart. My grandparents owned a piece of land between Andover and Augusta, just southwest of Santa Fe Lake, where I spent much of my childhood. It wasn’t until many years later on my quest to visit as many Kansas waterfalls as possible that I realized there was a waterfall at the lake.”

Another included photograph is one that he said goes viral anytime he posts it online. In the story that accompanies “Keeper of the Plains Lightning Bolt,” he writes: “The shot above taken in 2009 was one of my first award-winning images, having been a finalist in a photography contest with Smithsonian magazine. That summer was particularly stormy, so I spent a number of nights seeing what kinds of photographs I could get out there. At the time, I didn’t own a lightning trigger, so I was photographing lightning manually hoping to get lucky. One night, I did. I couldn’t have tried to frame the iconic Wichita statue within this lightning bolt any better.”

Shannon attributes his success to continuing to evolve as a photographer and applying his expertise as a web developer to his photography website, mickeyshannon.com.

Growing up in Kansas and family trips to outdoor destinations in Colorado, Oklahoma and South Dakota stoked his interest in nature. Picking up a disposable camera in his late teens, Shannon found he had an eye for composing landscape photographs. Finally in 2007, while in college at Friends University, he bought his first digital SLR camera and began reading nature photography books.

Shannon said he spent most of a 2009 trip to the Swiss and French Alps taking photos and at the end of the vacation he knew he wanted to be a professional landscape photographer. He began selling prints of his work in 2011, and the decision in 2018 to focus on fine art prints of his photographs helped grow the business. His image “Moraine Lake Sunrise Brilliance” taken in Lake Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, put him on the map among collectors, he said. But how did they find an image of this famous lake taken by a Kansas-based photographer?

“Since I do web development in my day job, I understand how to get myself high up in Google searches,” he said. “That’s helped me build up a website that does very well on Google. If you search for Kansas photography, I’m probably the first to come up. I’m usually in the top three if you were to search Colorado photography or Hawaii photography, and that’s really helped people find me.”

The Moraine Lake image is his top seller, followed by “Golden Light in the Flint Hills,” a sunset view of green, rolling hills to the east of Tuttle Creek Lake near Manhattan.

“I took that in the summer of 2020 or 2021,” Shannon said, “and it took me a few months to even process those images because I didn’t think they were going to be that great. Once I did, I thought that one was really good and it has turned out to be one of my best-sellers. I have buyers for that one not just in Kansas, but all over the country. They might be people from Kansas who moved, I’m not sure, but it’s nice to know that people in other parts of the country also think Kansas is beautiful enough to hang my print on their wall.”

That print is one of the few limited editions within Shannon’s Kansas collection. He prefers to keep his Kansas images as open editions – meaning there is no limit to how many he’ll print and sell – to make them more accessible to anyone who wants to purchase. Open editions can be purchased in smaller sizes and cost less than a limited edition. As an example, a 24”x16” print of the limited edition “Moraine Lake Sunrise Brilliance” has only 200 prints available and starts at $350 depending on the type of media the customer chooses for the print. An open edition Keeper of the Plains image in the same size starts at $280 depending on the print type selected.

Having a number of limited editions in his portfolio has helped Shannon qualify for showing and selling his work at fine art shows including Autumn & Art, scheduled for Sept. 15-17 in Wichita. At press time, formal invites hadn’t gone out for the event but he’s attended the past two years.

Shannon’s work is on display at other regional events throughout the year and he also has book signings scheduled. See a list of those events on his website at mickeyshannon.com/event-schedule.

Meanwhile, Shannon continues to take trips and capture more images around the world that he’ll add to his website and that could end up in a book.

“I’m hoping to do more books if this one continues to sell well,” he said. “It was a really fun process.”

Orville Spence.

FROM being a bridal photographer to a model scout, Orville Spence showcases nothing but greatness.

Spence, of 10.06studio fame, has been capturing and creating talent in the creative industry with his exceptional and artistic vision from as early as he could remember.

With a background in drawing and a passion for the arts, Spence, who hails from Kingston, has found his true calling in photography.

“I’ve always been kind of an artist; I used to draw when I was a kid and that just led to what I do now,” he shared. “I mean it’s still drawing, it’s still being artistic, the only difference is that I’m now using a camera instead of a pencil or paintbrush.”

Orville Spence

Highlighting the artistic nature of his work, Spence said a fire was lit at a crucial moment in 2011 when a friend lent him a camera and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.

Although he viewed photography as a hobby, Spence’s creative side began to grow in January 2015 when he decided to take it more seriously.

Specialising in model photography and weddings, his unique ability to capture the nature of his subjects has made him very sought-after in the field.

Spence says he posts mainly models on his page (IG @10.06studio) because he doesn’t want his brides to feel like they’re in competition with their photographer and other photos. But when he shoots a wedding, he captures the heart and soul of the event — every moment, every memory, immortalised as art.

Some of Spence’s work.

“I want them to have the freedom to post what they like when they like and I also like their weddings to be private, but I do have a website where potential clients can view my work,” he said.

One aspect of his work that truly inspires Spence is his desire to empower aspiring models to think outside the box of just posing.

“I love helping aspiring models find something within themselves to step further into the game instead of being lost in the pack,” he said. “I love the journey of shooting models.”

This commitment to working on talent led Spence to the idea of the diverse Wasomi Beauty International Talent & Modeling Agency. Having hosted its first successful fashion show in December, the agency (Wasomi in Swahili means ‘elite’) aims to provide models with opportunities to grow in the industry.

In his career, Spence has had the privilege of working with various agencies and has now embarked on a new venture with Wasomi Beauty alongside his friend and international marketing manager Phil Edwards, and model and coach Martha McGregor.

When asked about what inspires him, Spence acknowledged the influence of the “photography greats”.

“There are so many greats in photography who have made inspirational images that inspire me to get up and create,” he said.

“Creating is what I want to do, so I get up, I think of something that I can create, and I look for inspiration.”

Spence has had his fair share of memorable moments on the job. He recalls an unforgettable experience travelling with artiste Baby Cham.

During his time on the road, he captured memorable images in Europe and even had the opportunity to shoot on stage, capturing the energy of the artiste and the crowd.

Another significant achievement for Spence was creating an alluring flower girl image that now decorates the walls of the Spanish Court Hotel.

Spence mentioned that one artiste he would love to collaborate with on a concept would be Sean Paul. Although they are friends, Spence has yet to approach him about photography, but he hopes to do so in the future.

However, through all the good memories and work, his journey has had challenges. Spence highlighted the importance of never becoming complacent and never taking anything for granted, a valuable lesson he has learnt through his career.