I Love New Mexico Photographers: Alan Ross

In this episode of the "I Love New Mexico" podcast, host Bunny converses with Alan Ross, a renowned photographer and former assistant to Ansel Adams. Alan shares his journey in photography, emphasizing the profound influence of Adams on his career. He discusses his deep connection to New Mexico, the unique light and landscapes that inspire him, and his ongoing photography projects and workshops. The episode highlights Alan's passion for teaching and exploring new perspectives, offering listeners valuable insights into the art of photography and the enchanting beauty of New Mexico.

Links
Alan Ross Website 

Bunny Terry's website

Bunny Terry Instagram

Bunny Terry Facebook

Original Music by: Kene Terry

Transcript

Bunny 00:00:00  Welcome to the I Love New Mexico podcast, as you know. this is a podcast where we talk about anything and everything that has to do in New Mexico, and we have been waiting a while to get Alan Ross on the podcast because, it's a very busy guy, but also because Alan has a history of working with, one of my, my favorite photographer and somebody who is an icon in terms of creating, I don't know a better way to say it. True new Mexico images. and that's inadequate language. But our guest today is Alan Ross, who is an accomplished photographer and who worked as Ansel Adams assistant. And I before I say more and bungle half of the details, Alan, I'd love for you to introduce yourself in your own language to our guests.

Alan 00:01:01  Well, thank you, Bunny. Well, I love New Mexico, too. My wife and I have been living here for just over 30 years now. And I actually owe a lot of that to Ansel Adams. I was, Ansel Adams, photographic assistant, full time from 1974 to 1979. But, in 1975, Ansel had a series of photographs of Yosemite called the special Edition prints that he'd been offering for sale at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite for a number of years. And in 1975, he turned the pleasure of making those prints over to me. And I'm still making them. Almost 50 years later, I'm still still making the images, the prints from Ansel's original negatives of Yosemite. And, so Angela and I, was in regular contact with Ansel for five years, and, after I left to open my own advertising studio in San Francisco. But I was commuting down to Carmel to print in Ansel's house. And in fact, I was, in his darkroom printing. just shortly before he died. He was in the hospital already, and I sent some prints over to the hospital for him to approve. Wow. so, anyway, my association with Ansel is, been considerable. Yeah, over the years.

Alan 00:02:31  And as a matter of fact, it was my association with Ansel that wound up pretty much having me fall in love with the southwest and moved to Santa Fe. when I started working for Ansel, I was very much of a mountain enthusiast. I had friends in Colorado, and I loved the Sierras and so on. But, Ansel's house was so full of, Native American and southwestern, southwest art and, and so on that, I started migrating to the South and, started, really enjoying the Four Corners area and getting down into, into New Mexico and so on. So, it was it really caused my interest in to where I am now. back in 1990, 92, my wife and I were here with our two year old daughter. I grew up in San Francisco Bay area, in a little town called Sausalito, another popular place. but, we were here in Santa Fe on a vacation, and, my wife was looking at the paper and said, oh, look what kind of a house you can get for so much. Gee, wouldn't it be interesting to move here and stuff? And then 19, you know, it's things got got a little rough. There was a little mini recession at the time and we thought, well why not. So we. Here we are. So we came here and built a house south of Santa Fe. And, actually, right now where I'm sitting, if I, look out the window, I'm looking right up at the, at the songwriters and, looking north. And so I have a couple of acres of open space around me, and it's very nice.

Bunny 00:04:15  I am so interested. I want, you know, we can talk for a long time about what's happened in the past, but I see photos on the wall behind you, and I want to know. I want to know what you're doing. What? What is Alan Ross creating now?

Alan 00:04:30  Well, I'm still still photographing. I'm doing, been doing a lot of traveling. I can't really call them workshops, but they're photo adventures.

Alan 00:04:41  we just did one to Scotland a couple of weeks ago. Got back from that, and, and I have a couple of fellows from the UK coming to, study darkroom, work with me, printing with with me. We'll start tomorrow. and then in three weeks, we'll be in Greece, doing another photo adventure.

Bunny 00:05:01  Well, when you talk about photo adventure, how does. I mean, does somebody, have to be an accomplished photographer to go along with you? How does that work? I'm curious.

Alan 00:05:12  Well, actually, it's open to anybody that's interested in in making, you know, images of an area. And, you know, it started out with being essentially a kind of photographic workshop where I would, you know, talk about the, you know, how cameras work and how film works or digital and so on. but in the last couple of sessions, we've had a couple of people that just wanted to tag along as an artist, and they were doing sketching and things like that.

Alan 00:05:40  And so, you know, I'm still here to help people make photographs. They're still with the group to help people make photographs, but the whole idea is to go places where we want to photograph or make art. you know, it's not like everybody off the bus. You got 15 minutes from back on to go someplace else. You know, we have people working in large format cameras where you have to have a tripod, and you put the dark cloth over your head to make, you know, four by 5 or 8 by ten inch negatives. And that takes a little while to do that. But, we're not in any kind of a rush to, to move. So we just, we have, we've had some wonderful guides, and I've done a couple of workshops here in Santa Fe, too, where we'll go up to a cliff dwellings or up to Taos and, and so on. Tent rocks, although that's closed now. But, you know, there's a lot of wonderful stuff to photograph here.

Bunny 00:06:35  and and. Well, no, no, no, go ahead. Because when you said, Scotland and then you had these guys coming from the UK, I'm, I'm just curious about how. I mean, are your are the people who go with you from all over the country? Are they.

Alan 00:06:50  I've had people from all over the world. Actually, I've got a friend that lives in Bethlehem, and I've. I've made, numerous, I think, ten trips to China connected with photography. Wow. yeah. there's a fellow in Hangzhou, China that, loves the zones and zone system and large format photography. And a lot of Chinese do, love that. And so I've been over there a number of times, although it doesn't look, with the current political and other situations, that's going to be happening again. But, no, I've, people from South America, people from, in Europe, I've done little sessions in, in Germany and, Italy and. Yeah, it's it's fun. I love, love traveling.

Bunny 00:07:38  Well, and and what have you. So you have these guys coming from the UK to do darkroom work, but have you ever done an adventure in New Mexico?

Alan 00:07:47  Yeah, we've done a couple of them. well, let's see back in the eye, you know, ten, 15 years ago, maybe. Maybe longer. I have to get my calendar out to look. But we did, I sponsored what I called road trips. And we'd start out here in Santa Fe and then drive up into Colorado and photograph up and there and maybe over into Utah and do a little work there, and then work our way back through Chaco Canyon and, you know, wind up back here. And so I did a couple of those. And then, in the last couple of years, we've had some, like I mentioned, some, some workshops here where we'll, you know, do Taos and Poyer and Bandelier and, you know, just some other places to, to photograph around, you know, there's, there's lots to see and do.

Bunny 00:08:34  There is, there is. Now I have to I have to know how that relationship with Ansel Adams began. I mean, was it just was it did you have to interview with 100 other people or did he find you? I'm curious about how that came about.

Alan 00:08:49  Well, it it's it's one of those, ironies that it's it's sometimes it's people, you know, and being in the right place at the right time. I started my education as a mechanical engineering student at University of California, Davis, but that was to to rigorous. I mean, I, you know, it just it was too fussy. And so I transferred this in the early mid 60s and environmental studies didn't exist. So I transferred down to Berkeley into the School of Forestry, where they described the forest in terms of board feet. And that didn't suit me very well. Instead of taking care of the. Wow. yes, it was the lumber industry. And, Berkeley had a design department that was kind of patterned after a nouveau Bauhaus that had city and regional planning.  It had architecture, it had glassblowing, it had silversmithing, it had interior and graphic design. And, I transferred into that and that. They had a photography class that could be repeated for credit. and so I did that. And shortly after I changed majors into design, we got a new department chairman in the name of William Garnett, who had three Guggenheim grants for his aerial photography. And, he was, you know, a fantastic person. And he became my first mentor. And, he introduced our class to an advertising studio in San Francisco and an amazing, amazing photographer. And I saw my first eight by ten color transparency there. And it's just like, blew me away. at any rate, I really stuck with the photography at that point. And I was just finishing, college with an independent major in photography that I worked out for myself. and I was at a camera store in San Francisco one day. I didn't need anything but for some reason rather I went to the camera store and I walked in the door and overheard a clerk telling somebody that there was this studio photographer in San Francisco looking for an assistant.

Alan 00:10:55  Well, I'd been to his studio a couple of times with the class, and I stopped my tracks, drove down there and chatted for a while, and, showed him some photographs, and he said, okay, well, the the the floor needs mopping. The cameras need putting away. I'm going out for a bit. See you later. And I became his assistant, and, he and Ansel Adams were friends, and, my, that that job. I lasted for three years, and then he retired, his photographer, Milton Halberstadt, retired. And I wrote Ansel. I'd met him. And would you need an assistant? And he said, no, but we'd love to have you help out with the workshops we're doing in Yosemite. So I assisted, his workshop there in 1973 and then assisted a couple of other workshops for the gallery that Ansel wasn't part of, but I was running the darkroom for a workshop in July of 1974, and he asked me if I'd be interested in moving to Carmel and working for him full time.

Alan 00:11:56  so I thought about that for a microsecond and.

Bunny 00:11:58  Right.

Alan 00:11:59  Started packing my bags and it was, it was it was very good. Ansel had no concept of a day off. He had a wonderful guy, Ted Orland, working for him Monday through Friday. And I was hired to work Friday through Monday.

Bunny 00:12:12  Wow, wow.

Alan 00:12:13  And then then Ted went off on his own a few months later, and I was it, so that was great.

Bunny 00:12:21  Was so, was was he always, who he was? I mean, I guess that's that was one of the.

Alan 00:12:31  He was one of the warmest, most social people I've ever met. He loved nothing more than a good corny joke. He loved having people around. he was completely good natured. He always kept himself listed in the phone book, phone number and address, and anybody could call him. And, you know, he was very open and he loved sharing his love for photography. So, you know, I've been teaching photography since 1973, and, it's part of my life.

Bunny 00:13:04  That that is so cool. I am I have written a blog about and heard a lot of stories about, you know, Moonrise over Hernandez, which is without a doubt one of my favorite images. And somebody said to me a couple of years ago, oh, that's so, I can't it was almost, so staged and so and I said to me, I don't think so. I think it's a it's really indicative of what you can find here, how you can just go around a corner and as I understand the story, see something you have to capture because it's so surprising and so beautiful. I don't know what you think about that.

Alan 00:13:48  Well, actually, I do have some thoughts on Moonrise, and, one is that, Ansel made his first trip to to, Santa Fe and Taos in 1927 and then came back, you know, three times later. I'm not very good at dates, but, 27, 28 and 2930, and so on. And, the one interesting thing is that with all the research I've done, all of Ansel's early photographs in New Mexico were cultural.

Alan 00:14:22  the first I think the first landscape he made in New Mexico was like 1933. Otherwise he was photographing people and, you know, Adobe buildings and Indian dances, and, and stuff like that. And, you know, I mean, he did a book, Taos Pueblo, that was published, I think, in 1933 or earlier. 30. It maybe. And, and so, you know, but they're all pictures of people and, and where they lived and what they were doing. And Maria martinez making pottery and and so his wife, Virginia Virginia, had, a complete dinner set of Maria pottery. Wow.

Bunny 00:15:09  Shut the light. so that's huge, right.

Alan 00:15:12  And they decided to have. Oh, George O'Keefe came out to stay at the house one time, for a week, and, Mrs. Adams decided to serve a new Mexican dinner on the Maria pottery. And that was the evening that O'Keefe decided not to come up for dinner.

Speaker 3 00:15:28  Oh.

Alan 00:15:30  Yeah. I made a photograph of Ansel and O'Keeffe that's actually in the O'Keeffe Museum now.

Alan 00:15:34  But, at any rate, ansel's love for New Mexico is was deep, and Moonrise. Hernandez was not the surprise that it's made out to be because, okay, well, I mean, he'd been to he'd photographed the the church at Hernandez before. More from the back road. But, he and friends were up photographing up in the trauma River valley that day. And when you come down from Abiquiu, you come around the corner and the whole San Grays are laid out there. You can you can see the whole. So, you know, and that's like 13 miles north of Hernandez so that he, you know, Ansel came around the corner and here's this moon in these clouds. And I spent a lot of time in the car with Ansel driving around looking for photographs. And I swear, for the next 13 miles, he's driving down the road thinking there's got to be something I can do with that moon and clouds. There's got to be something I can do with the moon and clouds. Oh, there's that cemetery in Hernandez, I wonder.

Alan 00:16:41  And so he come around around the corner into Hernandez and bang, there it is. But it wasn't quite the surprise that it's made out to be. Yes he did.

Speaker 3 00:16:51  Okay.

Alan 00:16:52  Yes he did come around the corner and and see that scene and screeches to a halt. But the whole moon and clouds and everything like that was no surprise. One of his favorite lines is chance favors the prepared mind and Ansel. yeah. Isn't that a nice one?

Bunny 00:17:11  I'm writing it down right now. Chance favors the prepared mind.

Alan 00:17:15  And, I mean, Ansel was a working professional photographer, for one thing. And, you know, when somebody's paying you to make a photograph, you don't want to blow it. And, another thing, Ansel is sort of made out to be a technical techno fanatic, but, he was a musician. He started out as a as a as a fantastic musician. And for Ansel, testing film and doing stuff like that was no different than playing scales. He just didn't want to hit a wrong note.

Alan 00:17:46  And, you know, and I have a recording that, my boss before Ansel made of Ansel in 1958 at the piano. And he was awfully good. In later years, he had horrible arthritis in his fingers, and it hurt to play the piano. But after a couple of glasses of wine, you could loosen up and pull a nice sound out of this. That's right.

Speaker 3 00:18:09  That's.

Bunny 00:18:09  Right, Allen taught. So I love these Ansel Adams stories. But to tell some of yours, I want to hear about your New Mexico experience. I want to know, what you have, done that you've loved and and what you've done. That's been a little bit of a surprise. Even if the Hernandez photo was not the same surprise I expected.

Speaker 3 00:18:32  Yeah.

Alan 00:18:33  I've had some some wonderful experiences here in New Mexico, and I wrote a blog a number of years ago about, I called Too Close to Home. I grew, I mentioned I grew up to in in Sausalito, California, which is the first town on the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Alan 00:18:51  And the last thing I would have ever thought of doing is photographing the Golden Gate Bridge. you know, I was just it was too familiar. And all of this stuff. Well, I got when I had my advertising studio, I got hired to photograph the Golden Gate Bridge for the Bank of America. And I made a couple of my, my very best photographs because I was I had to photograph. But when I moved down to Carmel to work for Ansel, I was going to Point Lobos for lunch. Every day I'm driving down to Big Sur all the time and so on. But the longer I was there, the less I did. It was became too familiar. And that's kind of happened to me a bit here in New Mexico. And the Santa Fe area is I don't see the things as new the way I used to, but I mean, one of the first things that that just I really, really fell in love with and I'm still in love with it is El Rancho de las voluntariness, which is a time and I've made some wonderful photographs there.

Alan 00:19:52  And, you know, I've been oh, I've made photographs at Las Vegas and, other places on the high road to Taos. And just I mean, I love the place, and so but a lot of the time, I, you know, even when in my earlier days and, with Ansel and so on, most of my photographs were made when I was on vacation or traveling. Once again, it's getting away from my familiar surroundings. But that's one of the nice things about doing the little workshops here. The photo adventures here is that I'm out looking along with other people, looking at the architecture, looking at the, you know, the the scenery and so on. And so it's it's kind of nice. It's a little kick in the pants.

Bunny 00:20:40  I'm married to a guy who grew up in Santa Fe, started in Cimarron, but then ended up here when he was nine years old. And he still says almost every day. not in an ironic way at all. He just still says every day in the afternoon and the evening.

Bunny 00:20:58  Look at the light. It's. So can you believe the light on?

Speaker 4 00:21:04  You know, whether we're walking around.

Bunny 00:21:05  Downtown and it's the light on the side of the New Mexico Museum, New Mexico History Museum, or at the end of the street, or if we're out here at the house, we live south of town, off of Rabbit Road. And and I wonder if you have the same feeling about the light here. I know it feels like it's overdone. We talk about it too much. But for somebody who's listening, who's in Scotland today or night in Dubai or Africa. It's really I think it's important for them to get what the light is like here now.

Alan 00:21:38  And it's it's beautiful. I mean, I woke up this morning and the skies were beautiful. I mean, we've had kind of smoky days the last couple of days and, you know, but, you know, the light this morning was just lovely. And, you know, like I say, my my window here looks right up the sun rays.

Alan 00:21:55  And so I can see all of this and, it's lovely and, you know. No, I noticed it all the time. And actually, when I, when we moved here, our daughter was three years old, and, she wound up, she used to do, little PowerPoint things as to why we should move someplace else where there's more to for kids to do or something. and, so she. Anyway, she, went to university at USC in Los Angeles. And the first, first Christmas, she came home. Oh, my God, the air is so clear here. You can could breathe. And it snowed.

Speaker 3 00:22:32  Oh, it's so.

Alan 00:22:32  Gorgeous that it was like. You know, it took her a little bit of visitation in L.A. to. Oh, yeah. There is something really magical here.

Bunny 00:22:41  There is something really magical here. Well, tell tell me how I know that you said you're going to go to Greece. Yeah, soon. If if we had a listener who was curious about your adventures and wanted to be part of that, because I get the impression that you would be one of the best teachers and guides and leaders in terms of how to capture images, but how could people, how can they find you and get to know more?

Alan 00:23:12  We have all of that on my website at salon Rose photography.com.

Bunny 00:23:17  And we have a link to that in the show notes. So I want folks to know that they can find that there.

Alan 00:23:22  We have a there's a page of workshops and just click on that. And it talks about the adventures in Little Photo. Photo zoom talks I do once a month just to sit around and talk about photography with people that are interested in it, and.

Speaker 3 00:23:38  Oh, that's.

Bunny 00:23:38  Interesting. Tell me about that. How does that.

Speaker 3 00:23:40  Work?

Alan 00:23:41  Well, during the pandemic and stuff, you know, I could we couldn't do the regular workshops the way we used to and, and stuff. And Donna's truth is, most of our closest friends have been workshop students at one point or another, associates. And, we just decided to do what we call zoom ins and just, you know, we're just signed up and have chit chats about photography, and, they can share work, and we could talk about things and people have questions or how do you do this? Or how do you do that? And it's it's it's fun.

Alan 00:24:15  So we do that. but I spend I most of my time, aside from still printing the Ansel Adams special edition prints and I'm teaching and those are those are my main things. I'm still photographing myself, but for myself. But, not as much as I used to. And when I go out with the workshops, I don't my figure my time is more to spend time with the the participants than it is for me to get my camera out and do things, so I'm not doing. Actually, my wife and I are just talking about having some vacation time where I just bring my camera and we I can stop where I want to do things.

Bunny 00:24:57  You can go around a corner and catch an image, but, And what after grease, is there anything else on the horizon in terms of what people could get involved with?

Alan 00:25:07  my heritage is is Scottish, so that's partly why mine two. Yes. You know, I my core clan is MacLeods, which is, Isle of Skye. And, anyway, so that's that's been a lot of the, the reason for Scotland, but, I love to travel.

Alan 00:25:26  We did a workshop in, in Tuscany a number of years ago. We did, we've done Croatia, which is fabulous place, done a little, little one in Germany for a company there. we're doing we have, plans to do a, Romania workshop. we think maybe in June next year. and, we're now we're thinking of another, Scottish isles workshop, in maybe. Well, we're thinking either late June or September. We haven't quite decided yet. It's still a little up in the air, but those things will be on the website.

Bunny 00:26:06  Okay, so it's Alan Ross photography.com. Yeah. Okay. And thank you, Alan, for taking a moment to visit because I've, you've been on our list for a long time, and, I'm it's I, it's just a huge privilege to talk to you and hear your stories.

Alan 00:26:27  Well, it's been a pleasure here too, as I do love Santa Fe.

Speaker 3 00:26:33  Nice.

Bunny 00:26:34  And and we both love New Mexico. So this is a perfect way to to have a conversation.

Bunny 00:26:39  Thank you so much.

Alan 00:26:40  It's a pleasure.

Bunny 00:26:41  Thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to the I Love New Mexico podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it with your friends on social media, or by texting or messaging or emailing them a copy of the podcast. If you have a New Mexico story that you'd like to share with us, don't hesitate to reach out. Our email address is I Love New Mexico blog at gmail.com and we are always, always looking for interesting stories about New Mexico. Subscribe, share and write a review so that we can continue to bring you these stories about the Land of Enchantment. Thank you so much.