Contact

Présentation

For the first time, Robert Adams: Contact brings into view the artist’s contact sheets. Presented alongside the final prints, these previously unseen materials provide a glimpse into Adams’s creative process and the choices that shaped some of his most celebrated photographs. They trace his path through the landscape, and offer insights into his selections, sequences, and printing long after the exposure was made. Adams sometimes returned to contact sheets months or even years later. Sometimes the image “would be perfectly obvious,” says Adams. For others, “it took me a year to realize something was a picture.” Looking closely, Adams’s contact sheets reveal how he approached his subjects, and how he continued to think about his work after making an image.

Tract house and outdoor theater. Colorado Springs, Colorado , 1969

gelatin silver print , 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

Tract house and outdoor theater. Colorado Springs, Colorado , 1969

gelatin silver print , 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

Tract house and outdoor theater. Colorado Springs, Colorado , 1969

gelatin silver print , 16 x 14-1/2 inches (framed) [40.6 x 36.8 cm]

Robert Adams Tract house and outdoor theater. Colorado Springs, Colorado

1969

gelatin silver print , 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

In a 1969 contact sheet made in Colorado Springs, Adams took half a dozen images of a hillside covered in houses. In these exposures, the composition shifts slightly as clouds move across the sky, suggesting the stretch of time he spent there. The same sheet also includes three variations of the image above. Adams selected the version that leaves out a passing car and truck, yet retains the monumental drive-in movie screen that dwarfs the ridgeline in the distance.

Gelatin silver contact sheet, 1969 , 10 x 8 inches (sheet) [25.4 x 20.3 cm]. Private Collection, San Francisco

Gelatin silver contact sheet, 1969 , 10 x 8 inches (sheet) [25.4 x 20.3 cm]. Private Collection, San Francisco

“The act of walking was integral with discovering the world and what you were trying to say about it. It all depended on walking.”

Robert Adams

A surprising roll of film includes one of Adams’s most celebrated images from The New West , depicting a real estate sign at dusk. Shaped like a giant arrow, the sign looms above the silhouetted Rocky Mountain foothills. This contact sheet includes multiple shots of a kids’ baseball game, and exposures recording the late-day shadow of an unseen figure. Small green stickers signal Adams’s interest in each of the three exposures.

Colorado Springs , 1969

gelatin silver print , 15-1/2 x 14 inches (mount) [39.4 x 35.6 cm]

Colorado Springs , 1969

gelatin silver print , 15-1/2 x 14 inches (mount) [39.4 x 35.6 cm]

Colorado Springs , 1969

gelatin silver print , 16 x 14-1/2 inches (framed) [40.6 x 36.8 cm]

Robert Adams Colorado Springs

1969

gelatin silver print , 15-1/2 x 14 inches (mount) [39.4 x 35.6 cm]

When working in suburban places like Colorado Springs, Adams usually shot from the center of the street, often using a tripod. His contact sheets trace his movement on foot, as he approaches subjects and adjusts the composition. “Walking to me was essential,” says Adams. “The act of walking was integral with discovering the world and what you were trying to say about it. It all depended on walking.”

Gelatin silver contact sheet, 1970 , 10 x 8 inches (sheet) [25.4 x 20.3 cm]. Private Collection, San Francisco

Gelatin silver contact sheet, 1970 , 10 x 8 inches (sheet) [25.4 x 20.3 cm]. Private Collection, San Francisco

Boys in a pickup. Simla, Colorado , 1970

gelatin silver print , 14 x 11 inches (mount) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

Boys in a pickup. Simla, Colorado , 1970

gelatin silver print , 14 x 11 inches (mount) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

Boys in a pickup. Simla, Colorado , 1970

gelatin silver print , 16 x 14-1/2 inches (framed) [40.6 x 36.8 cm]

Robert Adams Boys in a pickup. Simla, Colorado

1970

gelatin silver print , 14 x 11 inches (mount) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

A 1970 contact sheet finds Adams in Simla, Colorado, about 50 miles from Colorado Springs. Along with several portraits of residents he encountered on a sunny afternoon , the sheet shows his interest in an old Ford truck with two children in the cab.

Most contact sheets include Adams’s crop marks in red ink or ballpoint pen, an artifact of his careful review process. To consider each frame, Adams moved L-shaped scraps of cardboard over the contact sheet, isolating individual negatives and adjusting the edges of the frame. By shifting the boards by small degrees, he discovered the best edges for a particular composition. Sometimes his marks trim just a sliver.

Gelatin silver contact sheet, 1969 , 3 x 5 inches (sheet) [7.6 x 12.7 cm]. Private Collection, San Francisco

Gelatin silver contact sheet, 1969 , 3 x 5 inches (sheet) [7.6 x 12.7 cm]. Private Collection, San Francisco

A meticulous and precise printer, Adams also made 3×5 note cards to record darkroom instructions for particular negatives. Here, he tracks the type of Seagull graded paper he used, the dates he printed the negative, and information about the enlarger settings. At the start of his career, Adams made cards for every serious image, but eventually decided his time was better spent elsewhere. “I could either keep good records or I co