Photography and Rhetoric
The photograph Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, California caught my eye in the gallery. It is a from Ansel Adam’s amazing work photographing the Yosemite National Park. The beauty of the photo cannot be exaggerated. Although the photo is in black and white it is clearly depicting one of the most beautiful places in the USA. A viewer may not even notice that the photograph is not in color because of the detail.
On the right side of the valley a butte is majestically standing over a cloud. On the left is a smaller butte which is not flat on top and from which a waterfall is streaming water to the valley floor. The title is perfect for the photo because the fog and low clouds are rolling away and opening up the view to the Yosemite Valley. When the photo was made the purpose was to show people the beauty of Yosemite because so few people had seen it. It was very difficult to get to the Yosemite Valley. Yosemite Park hadn’t been made yet. Adams explained his belief about making his photographs of Yosemite Valley,
“I believe man must be free, both in spirit and society, that he must build strength into himself, affirming the enormous beauty of the world and acquiring confidence to see and to express his vision. And I believe in photography as one means of expressing this affirmation, and achieving an ultimate happiness and faith.” (Sandler, 2002, p. 48)
Adams started out using the most popular style of photographing from 1910 to 1930 (Creative, 2012, para.2) which was a soft focus technique called the Pictorialist Style. After he saw Paul Strands’ photos using sharp focus Ansel Adams started shooting his landscapes with the sharp focus technique also. Clearing Winter Storm is like being there in Yosemite Valley because the edges are sharp and clear but then in the background the clouds soften the edges giving a feeling of opening up and expansion to the photograph. It is a photo which says you are standing on high in the mountains looking across a huge valley.
Hines (as cited by Finnegan) wrote that a photograph brings the viewer closer to the reality of the subject. “It speaks a language learned early in the race and in the individual (Finnegan, 2008, p. 94).” That would mean the rhetoric the viewer understands will depend on two types of culture: the global culture and their individual culture.
Hines is right about the photo by Ansel Adams, the photo allows the viewer to get lost in the nature and beauty of the valley. A viewer can have a break from everyday business and take a mini-vacation to the Yosemite.
Hines (as cited by Finnegan) also says “the average person believes implicitly that the photograph cannot falsify.” And then, “Of course, you and I know that this unbounded faith in the integrity of the photograph is often rudely shaken for, while photographs may not lie, liars may photograph.” (Finnegan, 2008, p. 94)
A photograph doesn’t really tell the truth or lie; it is a way of persuading a viewer to feel a particular feeling or even to be motivated to take a particular action. Adams photo, The Clearing of the Winter Storm, immediately gives a person the feeling of awe and makes the person want to go that beautiful place.
When Adams started taking photos in the Yosemite Valley it was still a wild, natural undeveloped area with no park facilities, trails or anything like that. In order to take photos there a person had to love camping and the outdoors. The Ahwahneechee tribe had not yet been forced by the Army to leave the Valley.
But the rhetorical message of a photo can shift as more knowledge is learned about the subject of the photo. For example the name of Yosemite is thought to have been a white man’s attempt to say Yo che mat te which meant “some among them are killers” and the label the Indians gave to the militias so other groups and tribes would be forewarned of the danger (Runte, 1990, .p. 12). With this new knowledge the photograph (and knowing its location and title) can give the viewer a deeper understanding of the place.
A photographer’s purpose can change over the years, too. In 1953 Adams complained to The Sierra Club about the weakness of the park services and their bending to encourage people into the park who want comforts and entertainment as he said “a ‘resort’ enterprise to which people are attracted for other reasons than the simple experience of the Natural Scene.” (as quoted by Runte, p. 186). When he first took Clearing of the Winter Storm he wanted to share the beauty with people and give them the same feeling he had in the Yosemite. He did not necessarily want lots of people to come to the place.
Some of his biographers though make a point of quoting his journal about his change of heart before he died. He wrote in his journal about the satisfaction he had in making an annual Christmas pageant a draw for visitors to Yosemite Park (as cited by Runte p. 187). This was the opposite of what he had most often indicated to the Park Service because usually he was upset about expanding facilities to the park. He was concerned with the damage that would be done by tourists on the valley.
The photographs Ansel Adams had taken of Yosemite Park remain the same photographs but the Park Service for instance wanted the photos to encourage coming and seeing the beauty first hand. That is the purpose of a National Park. The photos have motivated thousands of people to visit Yosemite every year.
Without the development of the park all the people who have visited to see the great natural beauty for themselves would have destroyed the park because they would not have had trails, guides, and amenities. Tourists and hikers also help fund the park to help pay for the upkeep so that the original beauty seen in the photograph won’t be lost.
When I look at the photo, Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, California by Ansel Adams, I find it hard to imagine that such a gorgeous place like that can really exist. I become excited and immediately want to take my camera and go there as soon as possible. Thousands of people have felt the same message when looking at the photo. Ansel Adam’s photos have drawn many people to Yosemite Park. The photograph is an image which motivated a lot of people to appreciate the beauty of nature and to visit the park.
References
Creative Photography Collections. (2012). Ansel Adams Photographs. Center for Creative Photography. CreativePhotography.org. University of Arizona Libraries. Retrieved from http://ccp.uair.arizona.edu/.
Finnegan, C. A. (2008, Nov.). “Liars May Photograph” Image vernaculars and progressive era child labor rhetoric. Poroi. 5(2) Article 3, pp. 94-139. Retrieved from http://ir.uiowa.edu/poroi/vol5/iss2/3.
Runte, A. (1990). Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Sandler, M. W. (2002). An Illustrated History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Wysocki, A. F. (2004). The multiple media of texts: How onscreen and paper texts incorporate words, images, and other media. Chapt. 6. What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices. C. Bazerman & P. Prior (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
