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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The absence of anyone on Team Norsigian with any real grounding in photo history (and I certainly include Alt in that assessment) gives the consortium a serious credibility gap. Team Norsigian’s intimation that they’re somehow spearheading an Adams revival is purely delusional. The failure to include anyone savvy enough to prevent this posse from shooting itself in the foot repeatedly in this fashion definitely ups the odds against their prevailing. […] This minor event has evoked such hysteria and vituperation from the Adams marketing machine — which does not own the negatives in question or have any claim thereto — that this phenomenon in itself merits some examination. William Turnage, managing trustee of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, actually compared the claims of Norsigian to the Nazi propaganda strategy of the “big lie.” “Hitler used that technique,” Turnage said. “You don’t tell a small one. You tell a big one.” It takes one deeply sick puppy to analogize Norsigian’s assertions of authenticity for these negatives to the despised Nazi propaganda technique. Turnage should feel ashamed of himself for this loathsome conduct, which embarrasses him and the Ansel Adams Trust as well. […] Coverage of the situation relating to the pending sale of the Polaroid Collection continues. Here’s a story from the September 22, 2009 issue of the Boston Globe, “Through the lens of time,” by Globe staffer Alex Beam. Beam quotes Sam Yanes, formerly of Polaroid and instrumental in the formation of the collection, as follows: “I […] |
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Team Norsigian Accentuates the Negative (17)
This story begins to feel like a rabbit hole, a sinkhole, a black hole — or some combination of those phenomena. Like the irascible diagnostician Dr. Gregory House of the eponymous TV series, I want to lurch to my chalkboard so as to scribble mad notes with interconnecting arrows all over it. Or lay about me with my cane. Or take some serious painkillers. Preferably all three. At once. As Bob Dylan sings, “The people just get uglier, and I have no sense of time.” […]