Amping up the bogosity and racing headlong toward a “goes to 11” mindset, Team Norsigian has apparently decided to sidetrack itself by investing some of its seemingly boundless energies in discrediting the “Uncle” Earl Brooks Theory of provenance for the Norsigian negatives. (Bogosity: “the state or condition of being bogus.”) Toward that end, they’ve dug up an online source for a small trove of Brooks’s commercial work, 81 images in all, presently housed in the Hagley Digital Archives in Wilmington, Delaware. […]
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How this news of Ernest C. Withers’s complicity with the F.B.I. will affect public and critical regard for his work I can’t say. The revelation doesn’t invalidate the work he did as a documentarian and photojournalist, but it surely nuances my response to know that he was slipping prints of some of these images, and other documents, and verbal information to his handlers on the sly. […] The only people keeping the truth about these negatives from the public are Rick Norsigian and Arnold Peter. By their staunch long-term resistance to engaging any recognized researcher in the field of photography history and conservation — dozens if not hundreds of whom accept such commissions regularly on behalf of private, corporate, and institutional collections — to submit these negatives to scrutiny and testing, they conspire to keep this “controversy” going and ensure that no hard forensic data gets produced. […] This “buyer beware” warning should instantly raise a red flag for any prospective purchaser, particularly since it appears at a site where otherwise the words “authentication,” “authenticated,” “expert opinion,” and “by Ansel Adams” get sprinkled around like minced parsley on the specials at a yuppie brunch spot. Not to mention an international media environment in which Team Norsigian’s leaders continue to insist on the authenticity claimed. Team Norsigian begins to resemble the medieval “ship of fools”: a transportable dumping ground for those considered one brick shy of a load by their communities. With this disclaimer, they invite others to hop on board. […] |
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Guest Post 7: Patrick Alt on the Norsigian/Adams Negatives
I was . . . retained not as a research historian. . ., but [for] my encyclopedic knowledge of cameras, lenses, and the more technical aspects of the plates. . . . As to the current status of my stance on the Norsigian plates, after hearing the opinion of my old friend John Sexton, who is convinced they are not by Ansel, I am now leaning toward that as well. I trust John’s integrity and his long history with Ansel and if it is good enough for John, I think I should follow his lead. […]