It appears that while there were no questions in Alt’s mind about Adams’s creation of these negatives a year ago, such questions have belatedly entered said mind. What happened to Ansel Adams’s style in these photographs avowedly being “so distinct, you could just feel him in the room”? Not even an “Oops”? Like Gilda Radner’s Emily Litella, Alt has seemingly persuaded himself that he can switch sides in this situation without admitting that his previous statements were erroneous, unfounded, and misleading. […]
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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. […] 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. […] 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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Team Norsigian Accentuates the Negative (15)
With the woebegone “art expert” David W. Streets, another original member of the team, now thoroughly discredited, and with the team’s “photography expert” Patrick Alt having recently started to change his mind about Adams’s authorship of the negatives (after earlier concluding his active involvement with Team Norsigian’s campaign), said cohort presently includes no one with any knowledge of photography or art. Not surprisingly, that ignorance is all over this report, whose announced purpose is the debunking of any attribution of these negatives to Earl Brooks. […]