Ansel Adams glass negatives worth $200M

I guess there's still some controversy on whether or not these are legit. But for a $45 box of glass plates (who does those anymore?) of really nice photos they're worth something a little more than that regardless.


Rick Norsigian made one of the best yard sale deals ever.

Ten years ago, the California painter bought two boxes of photographic plates for $45, after he bargained the owner down from $75. Today, they are worth an estimated $200 million.

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/07/27/2010-07-27_what_a_deal_photographer_ansel_adams_work_uncovered_at_a_yard_sale.html

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Vince
glass plates (who does those anymore?)

They've been mostly replaced by plastic sheets.

No one uses glass plates to shoot with, but you can still print from them. Crazy story!

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hotrod4x5
No one uses glass plates to shoot with

I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion.

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eeek

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hotrod4x5
No one uses glass plates to shoot with

I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion.

If you can find a reference to someone still using the process, I'll recant my statement. But glass plates are fragile, heavy and just impractical in today's world. Fewer and fewer photographers are using any kind of film at all, let alone a process that hasn't been used since the 1920's. http://www.thescreamonline.com/photo/photo2-4/glass_slides/glass.html

"By 1888 George Eastman sold the first Kodak cameras and flexible roll films, revolutionizing photography and leading to the decline of glass plate photography, which disappeared altogether by the mid-1920’s."

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hotrod4x5

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eeek

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hotrod4x5
No one uses glass plates to shoot with

I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion.

If you can find a reference to someone still using the process, I'll recant my statement. But glass plates are fragile, heavy and just impractical in today's world. Fewer and fewer photographers are using any kind of film at all, let alone a process that hasn't been used since the 1920's. http://www.thescreamonline.com/photo/photo2-4/glass_slides/glass.html

"By 1888 George Eastman sold the first Kodak cameras and flexible roll films, revolutionizing photography and leading to the decline of glass plate photography, which disappeared altogether by the mid-1920’s."

There's likely no practical reason to use glass plates. However - there are some people who like using "period" materials and will try all sorts of things in the name of "doing it the old fashioned way". Ansel Adams was already using outdated technology until his passing.

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hotrod4x5
No one uses glass plates to shoot with, but you can still print from them. Crazy story!

The Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite sells prints reportedly from original plates:
http://www.anseladams.com/category_s/20.htm

---

Frank Furter

The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

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Vince
I guess there's still some controversy on whether or not these are legit. But for a $45 box of glass plates (who does those anymore?) of really nice photos they're worth something a little more than that regardless.


Rick Norsigian made one of the best yard sale deals ever.

Ten years ago, the California painter bought two boxes of photographic plates for $45, after he bargained the owner down from $75. Today, they are worth an estimated $200 million.

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/07/27/2010-07-27_what_a_deal_photographer_ansel_adams_work_uncovered_at_a_yard_sale.html

Even if they're legit, $200 million? That doesn't sound right.

That and there are other things that make this story rather odiferous.

The most important thing about Ansel's prints were the way he processed his negatives in the dark room. The plates maybe his, but the images made from these plates will not reflect Ansel's vision of the photo unless he was alive to do the final processing.

I understood he would wait for hours until the light was just right for his subject and then would take just one shot of it. Don't know how true it is regarding the single shot. Then again, those glass plates were heavy to lug around.

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tomdisco
I understood he would wait for hours until the light was just right for his subject and then would take just one shot of it. Don't know how true it is regarding the single shot. Then again, those glass plates were heavy to lug around.

My understanding is that he would typically take two shots - one right after the other in case something went wrong.

However - that doesn't compare at all with the typical modern nature/landscape photographer with a digital SLR who can literally take hundreds to thousands of photos a day to just capture the right light.

I thought an analysis was done comparing cloud backgrounds with known Ansel Adams photos and this verified the glass plates belonged to Adams. What's changed?

No, you have it backwards. The photos are the same as some of his, except for the clouds. On the other hand, one of them is exactly the same as one of Uncle Earl's prints, except for the clouds. Lots of people have tried to replicate Ansel's photos by placing their cameras in about the same place...

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wherever
No, you have it backwards. The photos are the same as some of his, except for the clouds. On the other hand, one of them is exactly the same as one of Uncle Earl's prints, except for the clouds. Lots of people have tried to replicate Ansel's photos by placing their cameras in about the same place...

O.K., the local paper (in Raleigh) got it wrong or the feed to them was incorrect.