Discover Ansel Adams’ 226 Photos of U.S. National Parks (and Another Side of the Legendary Photographer)

in Photography | February 22nd, 2013

Ansel Adams

Amer­i­cans ven­er­ate the work of Ansel Adams but tend to get over­ex­posed to the usu­al Adams prints in den­tists’ wait­ing rooms, cor­po­rate offices, and oth­er anes­thet­ic spaces. At least that’s been my expe­ri­ence. It’s easy to for­get how much Adams’ work vital­ly defined the 20th cen­tu­ry per­cep­tion of the Amer­i­can West, as much as Fred­er­ic Rem­ing­ton’s defined that of the 19th.

Wednes­day, in hon­or of what would have been Adams 111th birth­day, we post­ed a fas­ci­nat­ing 1958 doc­u­men­tary to rein­tro­duce you to the Adams you may have thought you knew—“musician, moun­taineer, writer, teacher, pho­tog­ra­ph­er.” In the midst of redis­cov­er­ing Adams our­selves, we stum­bled upon an incred­i­ble trove of images at the Nation­al Archives—226, to be exact—taken at the behest of the Nation­al Park Ser­vice in 1941.

The pur­pose was to cre­ate a pho­to mur­al for the Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or Build­ing in Wash­ing­ton, DC with the theme “nature as exem­pli­fied and pro­tect­ed in the U.S. Nation­al Parks.” While WWII put a stop to the project, the pho­to archive Adams left behind still makes an excel­lent case for the fed­er­al preser­va­tion of these land­scapes (or what’s left of them today). This is the kind of pro­pa­gan­da I can get behind.

The image above is 79-AAB‑1 in the archive, or more pro­saical­ly, “Boul­der Dam, 1941.” Adams pho­tographed grand land- and desertscapes all over the West and South­west, includ­ing the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Death Val­ley, Yel­low­stone, Yosemite, Carls­bad Cav­erns, and land belong­ing to Nava­jo and Pueblo Indians—such as image #79-AAA‑6 (below), or “Church, Aco­ma Pueblo,” tak­en in Aco­ma Pueblo, New Mex­i­co.

Ansel Adams2

Like most of Adams’ work, these images are mon­u­men­tal­ly breath­tak­ing in all their high-con­trast vast­ness. Most of them are signed or cap­tioned by Adams. You can browse the archives, view all of the pho­tos, and order prints through the Nation­al Archives web­site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Extreme Pho­tog­ra­phy: Shoot­ing Big Climbs at Yosemite

Alfred Stieglitz: The Elo­quent Eye, a Reveal­ing Look at “The Father of Mod­ern Pho­tog­ra­phy”

Watch as Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Steve McCur­ry Shoots the Very Last Roll of Kodachrome

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

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Richard Dawkins Dies (Not Really) and Meets His Maker in a New NSFW Animation

in Comedy, Religion | February 22nd, 2013

When Christo­pher Hitchens died, it did­n’t take long for humorists to imag­ine the com­ic sce­nario: what hap­pens when the surly athe­ist comes face to face with God? It’s amus­ing to con­sid­er. And when it comes to Richard Dawkins, the humorists aren’t wait­ing for the biol­o­gist’s demise to play things out. In Kevin Breen’s South Park-style trib­ute, Dawkins arrives at the Gates of Heav­en, only to dis­cov­er that God exists after all. When the “Man in the Sky Who Saves Amer­i­ca, Bless­es the Queen” asks Dawkins for his reac­tion, the author of The God Delu­sion gives him an ear­ful. The stri­dent lan­guage is pure Dawkins. Actu­al­ly, his lines are sound bites tak­en from recent Dawkins speech­es. In 2006, a stu­dent famous­ly asked Dawkins “What If You’re Wrong [About the Exis­tence of God], and the Oxford biol­o­gist replied with lines that sound famil­iar.

In this clip, crit­ics will find anoth­er rea­son not to like Dawkins; fans will find anoth­er rea­son to adore him. But, what did Richard Dawkins think? “Fun!,” he wrote, as he post­ed it to his Face­book page.

Note: This video con­tains some strong lan­guage. It’s basi­cal­ly NSFW.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Alan Watts and His Zen Wis­dom Ani­mat­ed by Cre­ators of South Park

The Unbe­liev­ers, A New Film Star­ring Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Wern­er Her­zog, Woody Allen, & Cor­mac McCarthy

Christo­pher Hitchens: No Deathbed Con­ver­sion for Me, Thanks, But it was Good of You to Ask

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The Photographer Reveals the Philosophy, Techniques & Artistry of Edward Weston (1948)

in Film, Photography | February 22nd, 2013

He’s been gone 55 years, but the Amer­i­can West we see in our mind’s eye still owes much to Edward West­on’s pho­to­graph­ic eye. Yet because he worked in more or less every one of the known forms of his day — por­trait, land­scape, still-life, scenes in a vari­ety of tones, and beyond — we tend to think we know West­on’s work when we’ve only seen a frac­tion of it. You can get a sense of the scope of his career by watch­ing The Pho­tog­ra­ph­er above. Pro­duced in 1948, the final year of West­on’s career, the half-hour doc­u­men­tary can thus exam­ine near­ly his entire body of work. The true West­on afi­ciona­do should note that it also exam­ines his home and his cats. (The lat­ter get into the for­mer by way of a cat door made from an old lens board.)

If you have an inter­est in twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can pho­tog­ra­phy, West­on’s name often comes up. But you may also rec­og­nize the name of the film’s direc­tor, Willard Van Dyke. A one­time appren­tice of West­on’s, Van Dyke made the intro­duc­tion between the mas­ter and Ansel Adams, thus form­ing a con­nec­tion between two men who visu­al­ly defined Amer­i­ca. Along with fel­low San Fran­cis­co pho­tog­ra­ph­er Imo­gen Cun­ning­ham, the three would form the Mod­ernist Group f/64. Van Dyke made The Pho­tog­ra­ph­er under the ban­ner of the Unit­ed States Infor­ma­tion Agency, and it has the feel of faint­ly pro­pa­gan­dis­tic opti­mism you’d thus expect, but the film has much to show and say about West­on’s meth­ods and the Cal­i­forn­ian nat­ur­al world he so strik­ing­ly cap­tured.

You will find The Pho­tog­ra­ph­er list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Doc­u­men­taries Online, part of our col­lec­tion 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Cre­ative Process of Ansel Adams Revealed in 1958 Doc­u­men­tary

Hen­ri Carti­er-Bres­son and the Deci­sive Moment

Errol Mor­ris: Two Essen­tial Truths About Pho­tog­ra­phy

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Watch Huell Howser’s Decades of Television Travels Online. It’s California Gold!

in Television, Travel | February 21st, 2013

When tele­vi­sion broad­cast­er Huell Hows­er passed away last month, we South­ern Cal­i­for­ni­ans real­ized just how far his per­sona reached. The cliché “larg­er than life” seems, in this light, almost apt; it describes his famous­ly vol­u­ble enthu­si­asm, larg­er than the broad­ly local life he explored on cam­era. Though fol­low­ers iden­ti­fy Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Gold as Howser’s flag­ship series, he host­ed spe­cial­ized ones as well, such as Down­town, focus­ing on Los Ange­les’ his­toric core, Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Mis­sions (sub­ject obvi­ous), and Road Trip, which took him far­ther afield. Above, you’ll find an episode of Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Gold shot in Palm Springs. Hows­er hap­pened to own a home out there, but more to the point, so did Frank Sina­tra; it’s the Chair­man of the Board­’s house that Hows­er devotes his con­sid­er­able curios­i­ty to walk­ing through and find­ing out every­thing about. Below, you can join him for a look at Vin­cent Price’s art col­lec­tion on a Vis­it­ing… broad­cast that con­tains an inter­view Hows­er record­ed with Price back in the eight­ies.

“I don’t have an agent,” said Hows­er in a 2009 Los Ange­les Times pro­file. “I don’t have a man­ag­er, I don’t have a press agent, I don’t have a wardrobe guy, a make­up guy, a park­ing space, a dress­ing room. It’s basi­cal­ly me and a cam­era­man and an edi­tor and a cou­ple of guys in the office. I can go out between now and noon and do a full 30-minute show just talk­ing to peo­ple on the street and have it on the air tonight.” You can watch all these shows on Chap­man Uni­ver­si­ty’s new Huell Hows­er Archive; just click on a series title under the “Shows” col­umn, then through to each episode’s indi­vid­ual post. For a pub­lic tele­vi­sion icon, Hows­er had a pro­duc­tion sen­si­bil­i­ty ide­al­ly suit­ed for the inter­net, domain of the cheap and cheer­ful — well, domain of the cheap, any­way. “We have shrugged our way into a world where every­one is sup­posed to be a crit­ic of every­thing, all the time,” actor Thomas Lennon wrote in a remem­brance titled “Why Huell Hows­er Was the Oppo­site of the Inter­net.” “Huell, on the oth­er hand, would get into his car, dri­ve for hours, and show us things… just so he could tell us how won­der­ful they were.”

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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George Martin, Legendary Beatles Producer, Shows How to Mix the Perfect Song Dry Martini

in Food & Drink, Music | February 21st, 2013

George Mar­tin knows some­thing about mix­ing. The Bea­t­les trust­ed him to mix their albums, decid­ing which ingre­di­ents to leave in, and which ones to leave out. (Take for exam­ple this lost gui­tar solo from “Here Comes The Sun.”) The record pro­duc­er, some­times known as the Fifth Bea­t­le, has taste. No one dis­putes that. So let’s let him mix us the per­fect dry gin mar­ti­ni and issue an amus­ing word of cau­tion. Hope you’re tak­ing care­ful notes.…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

William Faulkn­er’s Hot Tod­dy Recipe

Gui­tarist Randy Bach­man Demys­ti­fies the Open­ing Chord of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

Peter Sell­ers Reads “A Hard Day’s Night” in Shake­speare­an Mode

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Queen Documentary Pays Tribute to the Rock Band That Conquered the World

in Film, Music | February 21st, 2013

If there were ever a band that per­fect­ly embod­ied all of the mas­sive excess­es of late 70’s are­na rock, that band was Queen. Occa­sion­al­ly ridicu­lous, often sub­lime, nev­er bor­ing, the four piece over­took The Who for stage spec­ta­cle and rock the­atrics, and could boast of one of the most adven­tur­ous and inno­v­a­tive rock gui­tarists of all time in Bri­an May.

The rhythm sec­tion of John Dea­con and Roger Tay­lor didn’t slouch either, but as we know, when we’re talk­ing Queen, we’re talk­ing Fred­die Mer­cury, the most charis­mat­ic, pow­er­ful lead singer in rock his­to­ry, or as Allmusic’s Greg Pla­to put it, “one of rock’s great­est all-time entertainers/showmen,” who “pos­sessed one of the great­est voic­es in all of music and penned some of pop’s most endur­ing and instant­ly rec­og­niz­able com­po­si­tions.” I sus­pect there a lit­tle hyper­bole there, but maybe not much.

In any case, Mer­cury sold all those “great­ests” to hun­dreds of mil­lions of fans, over a 20 year career span­ning 26 albums and many hun­dreds of oper­at­ic megashows. Mer­cury and the band worked incred­i­bly long and hard to earn every acco­lade, trib­ute, box set, and memo­r­i­al since Mer­cury’s shock­ing­ly sud­den (or so it seemed) death from AIDS com­pli­ca­tions in 1991. One of the most recent of those trib­utes is the doc­u­men­tary above Queen: The Days of Our Lives.

Released on the 40th anniver­sary of Queen’s found­ing in May 2011, the film takes its title not from the long-run­ning soap opera but from the band’s final record­ing togeth­er, “These Are the Days of Our Lives” (below), writ­ten by drum­mer Roger Tay­lor and issued as a sin­gle in the U.S. just one month before Mercury’s death. The song (and video) sub­se­quent­ly became a poignant reminder of Mer­cury’s tal­ent and pres­ence; it is a fit­ting ref­er­ence for a Queen film this com­pre­hen­sive.

The “plot” of the doc­u­men­tary, so to speak, can rough­ly be sum­ma­rized as: rise from band of hun­gry uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents to glob­al rock stars; declin­ing sales, low times, infight­ing; rise again in tri­umphant revival after the ’85 Live Aid and the Mag­ic Tour in 1986; and, final­ly, trag­i­cal­ly, the end. Pro­duc­er Rhys Thomas says of the film:

We have set out to make the defin­i­tive Queen doc­u­men­tary. It’s a fun­ny, hon­est, inspir­ing and ulti­mate­ly trag­ic account of ‘a cer­tain band called Queen,’ as told by the band them­selves. We tell the sto­ry of four stu­dents who met in West Lon­don, slogged hard and con­quered the world, ulti­mate­ly chang­ing rock music for­ev­er.

Whether you think Queen always changed rock music for the bet­ter is a mat­ter of per­son­al taste, but they’ll nev­er be for­got­ten. Orig­i­nal­ly released in two parts on UK tele­vi­sion, the full ver­sion of the doc­u­men­tary above has Dutch sub­ti­tles, tons of archival footage and reveal­ing inter­views, and enough awe­some gui­tar solos to fill up Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Fred­die Mer­cury at Live Aid (1985)

Fred­die Mer­cury: The Untold Sto­ry of the Singer’s Jour­ney From Zanz­ibar to Star­dom

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

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Ansel Adams Reveals His Creative Process in 1958 Documentary

in Art, Film, Photography | February 20th, 2013

Today marks what would be the 111th birth­day of Ansel Adams, the Amer­i­can pho­tog­ra­ph­er who cap­tured the sub­lime pow­er of the wilder­ness, tak­ing icon­ic images of the Amer­i­can West, most notably in Yosemite Val­ley. (See pho­to gallery here.) Orig­i­nal footage doc­u­ment­ing the cre­ative life of Ansel Adams is sur­pris­ing­ly hard to come by online. So A/V Geeks and Devel­op Tube did us all a favor when they revived this 1958 doc­u­men­tary reveal­ing Adams’ tech­ni­cal approach to pho­tog­ra­phy, the cam­eras and relat­ed gear he car­ried to the field, and his thoughts on the artis­tic hori­zons of pho­tog­ra­phy.

Ansel Adams, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er (1958) is avail­able at YouTube and Archive.org. It will now appear in our col­lec­tion of Free Doc­u­men­taries, a sub­set of our meta col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­cov­er Ansel Adams’ 226 Pho­tos of U.S. Nation­al Parks (and Anoth­er Side of the Leg­endary Pho­tog­ra­ph­er)

Alfred Stieglitz: The Elo­quent Eye, a Reveal­ing Look at “The Father of Mod­ern Pho­tog­ra­phy”

1972 Diane Arbus Doc­u­men­tary Inter­views Those Who Knew the Amer­i­can Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Best

Hen­ri Carti­er-Bres­son and the Deci­sive Moment

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Artists Turn Weather Data into Swirling “Living Portraits” of Continental U.S. Wind Patterns

in Art, Science | February 20th, 2013

Like an invis­i­ble sculp­tor, the wind slow­ly shapes the nat­ur­al world, bend­ing Mon­terey Pines along California’s coast to reach hor­i­zon­tal­ly towards the land, and whip­ping dry beach dunes into peaks.

Artists Fer­nan­da Vié­gas and Mar­tin Wat­ten­berg, work­ing as HintFM, used the aer­i­al view of wind blow­ing around the Unit­ed States as the tem­plate for a dynam­ic art piece, Wind Map. About every hour, Wind Map down­loads wind cir­cu­la­tion data from the Nation­al Dig­i­tal Fore­cast Data­base. The site’s image of the con­ti­nen­tal U.S. refresh­es with new data, show­ing the most cur­rent traces of wind pat­terns, in vary­ing shades of white depend­ing on wind speed.

Like grass on an expanse of hill­side, the wind becomes vis­i­ble against the dark back­ground of the coun­try. It’s pos­si­ble to see, vivid­ly, the wind’s strength as it swoops from the north west and the south, up into a sin­gle cor­ri­dor that blasts up from Mobile Bay in Louisiana to Chica­go and beyond.

HintFM calls the site a “liv­ing por­trait” of the wind’s foot­prints at any giv­en moment, but they make sure we know it’s art, not sci­ence. Please, they note, do not use the map or its data to fly a plane, sail a boat, or fight wild­fires.

But the Wind Map archive can’t help but offer mete­o­ro­log­i­cal val­ue. Watch the wind pat­terns as Hur­ri­cane Sandy brewed off the East­ern seaboard in Octo­ber and again when it hit land. Oth­er images in the archive gallery include days that pro­duced some beau­ti­ful whorls of wind.

The site includes links to infor­ma­tion about wind pow­er. Made vis­i­ble, the wind can be seen as the force it is, beau­ti­ful, pow­er­ful, har­ness­able.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch a Cool and Creepy Visu­al­iza­tion of U.S. Births & Deaths in Real-Time

Per­pet­u­al Ocean: A Van Gogh-Like Visu­al­iza­tion of our Ocean Cur­rents

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at . 

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