If Ansel Adams were alive today he would probably be pleasantly surprised at this return on investment. A song Rick Norsigian did used a whole box of negatives he found in a garage sale. After 10 years of trying, he finally convinced experts that the negatives were taken by legendary photographer Ansel Adams. Now he’s poised to reap a crazy return on his $ 45 investment. All the photos are being appraised for more than $ 200 million now.
Ansel Adams work in a garage sale
Ansel Adams died in 1984 and created black and white pictures of the American West. Some of probably the most famous by Ansel Adams are pictures which were taken in Yosemite National Park in California. The sellers wanted Norsigian to pay $ 70 for the two boxes of glass negatives, but he talked them down to $ 45, reports CNN. Art expert Robert Moeller told CNN that after six months of study, he concluded “with a high degree of probability, that the images under consideration were produced by Ansel Adams”.
Ansel Adams photos called ‘missing link’
Norsigian’s Ansel Adams garage sale photographs are a “missing link” within the history of the photographer’s career; appraiser and art dealer David W. Streets told CNN. The Beverly Hills gallery had the photos shown for the very first time July 27. He also thinks the return on his investment could be at least $ 200 million. 5,000 plates were destroyed in a 1937 darkroom fire although these 65 negatives seem to have made it.
Zone system set up by Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams’ Yosemite photos didn’t become famous until the 1940s, while these photos were taking between 1919 and the 1930s. A Wikipedia page on Adams reports that he co-developed a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print, and he called it the Zone System. The resulting clarity and depth of Ansel Adams’ Zone System defined the classic Ansel Adams images. Adams used big, heavy, expensive high-resolution large-format cameras to ensure sharpness in his images.
Finding numerous Ansel Adams negatives
The Ansel Adams garage sale photographs still have their doubters, despite the endorsement of art experts. The blog, Croanca, wonders if the dealers within the CNN article are really qualified to say this is Ansel Adams photos. Those who like Ansel Adams wonder if reproduction will be a bad thing. Someone at visualjournalism.info wonders if the Ansel Adams photographs could be produced good enough.
Find more information on this subject
CNN
cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/07/27/ansel.adams.discovery/?hpt=Sbin
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams
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