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Ford, Susan - Events - 6/8-12/75 - Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop
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Ford, Susan - Events - 6/8-12/75 - Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop
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The original documents are located in Box 43, folder "Ford, Susan - Events - 6/8-12/75 -
Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop" of the Sheila Weidenfeld Files at the Gerald R. Ford
Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Gerald Ford donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Some items in this folder were not digitized because it contains copyrighted
materials. Please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library for access to
these materials.
Digitized from Box 43 of the Sheila Weidenfeld Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
The Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop
Bill Turnaz - Business Manager - general aide
Can refer press questions re Ansel Adams
408 624 2558
Once the Seminar has started (209) 372-4511
625 1803
Susan is going as Ansel Adams' guest - she is paying her own
air fare
28th year for June workshop in Yosemite -- it specializes in
creative photography
June 8-18 - intense 10-day workshop
Includes about 68 students; in addition, 9 professional photographers
who teach; all the photographers who teach have had some impact in
creative photography; 9 staff assistants who help, as well.
Everything is done in small groups of 8 to 12 each; many of the
classes are held outside; much of the photography is done with
a polaroid so students can have an "instant analysis"
workshops are very flexible,
i.e., afternoon session might be with Ansel Adams -- maybe
analyzing photos -- or individualized critique sessions;
i.e., darkroom sessions, showing cropping, etc.
i.e., evenings might be a slide show or lecture, usually
end at 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. -- rapping follows with
other students and instructors
9:00 a.m. is usually starting bime, but for instance
might have dawn photos -- it varies a lot
Emphasis is on informal, flexible schedule
Headquarters is small gallery in Yosemite -- The Ansel Adams
Gallery (darkroom is there). Note: probably shouldn't release
unless pressed -- the people know around there
Ansel Adams lives in Carmel, California; he met with President in
late January to talk about National Parks -- then had lunch with
Betty Ford and she took them on tour; mentioned how interested
Susan Ford was in photography-because of that, and the President
and her brothers relationship with National Parks, Ansel Adams
invited her.
Ansel Adams is described as Americas most renown creative
photographer in the country - photographer as artist; not
really "landscape photography," but does have long relationship
with national parks. Born in San Francisco in 1902 - nose broken
in San Francisco earthquake in 1906.
Pretty much the first 68-70 who apply - invited Susan a month
ago -- held a spot open in case she could come (they always have
many more applicants than they can accept). They hoped to meet
in San Francisco in January, but schedules didn't jibe.
Students will stay -- either campout in the park (1,000 square mile
park - California) or in cabins or hotel rooms. Most stay at
Yosemite Lodge -- rustic -- central accomodation.
Age of students -- all over the map -- range from 16-17 to 70's;
usually one-third students; one-third a variety of doctors,
lawyers; one-third photographers making a living at it; very
broad range of abilities.
Ansel Adams' basic philosophical concept is the inspiration of
natural beauty and photography; reason for the workshop in
Yosemite is correlation between natural emotional feelings and
the photos that result.
Students use their own cameras. Susan has a NIKO Mat (35 mm)
Two of the professional photographers -- Arnold Newman, renown
American portraitist, New York, and Philip Hyde, color photography
specialist, Taylorville.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Date: 5-27-75
TO: Shelia Firdenfeld
FROM: Kathy Tindle
For your information:
Comments:
Ru your conversation
u/dore Kennerly.
FORD
ORABLE
LABRARY
A
ANSEL ADAMS
ROUTE 1, BOX 181, CARMEL, CALIFORNIA 93921 TELEPHONE (408) 624-2558
May 14, 1975
Mr. David Kennerly
Personal Photographer to the President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.
Dear David,
Bill Turnage told me that you had indicated you would be glad
to deliver my letter to President Ford. I believe the subject
is of great importance, both to the President personally and
to the future of the country. Your support and assistance
are more deeply appreciated than I can say. I enclose a copy
of the letter the President sent me last month, and to which I
am responding, and also a copy of my letter to the President for
your information.
I hope you will be able to make the long-promised visit to
Carmel soon. Perhaps, if Ms. Susan Ford decides to accept my
invitation to the Yosemite Workshop, you could come out for a
day or two at that time.- One way or another, let's get
together!
Warmest regards,
Ty! At
Encs.
FORD & LIBRARY
AA:ar
May 14, 1975
Ms. Susan Ford
The White House
Washington, D.C.
Dear Ms. Ford,
My good friend David Kennerly has told me of your interest in
photography. I would like to invite you to attend, as my guest,
my June workshop in Yosemite National Park. The workshop
begins on the 8th and continues through the 18th. As you will
see from the enclosed poster, we have a variety ofoousatanding
creative photographers on the staff, including Arnold Newman,
the great portraitist, who has recently photographed your father.
The workshop is intended for photographers of all levels and
persuasions, but a serious commitment to the medium is certainly
helpful, as the ten days are rather intense. We utilize field
sessions, darkroom teaching, seminars, print critiques and
lecture/seide presentations as the situation requires. I think
you would find it a very stimulating environment and there are
always quite a few young students with whom you would have much
in common. As you may know, Yosemite National Park is among our
great national treasures, and June is a particularly beautiful
time. The waterfalls are at full roar in the Valley, and there
is still snow in the surrounding high Sierra. I have sent a
copy of this letter to David and hope that you would seek his
advice if the invitation interests you. We would be happy to
make all of the necessary arrangements in Yosemite.
I will look forward to hearing from you. Meanwhile, please give
my warmest personal regards to your parents. I admire them very
much and have the warmest memories of my January visit to the
White House.
Sincerely,
FORD LIBRARY
AA:ar
cc: David Kannerly
Jine 8-14
ANSEL ADAMS
ROUTE 1, BOX 181, CARMEL, CALIFORNIA 93921 TELEPHONE (408) 624-2558
May 14, 1975
President Gerald Ford
The White House
Washington, D.C.
My Dear Mr. President,
Your continuing interest in my ideas concerning our National
Parks is a source of great pride. I am fully aware of the honor
you have accorded me, first by meeting with Bill Turnage and me,
and now by responding to my memorandum in your good letter of
8 April. I have pondered long and hard about a response, as I
do not wish to take your time with polite but meaningless
sentiments. I believe the President, more than anyone else,
must be exposed to frank and candid views, even if they differ
in substance, as mine will in this letter. But I respond in a
spirit of constructive candor because I have great respect for
your openness and remarkably direct approach. I have asked our
mutual friend, David Kennerly, to personally deliver this letter
to you because I wish to maintain that marvelous directness of
communication that David has done so much to foster.
I accept the high level of idealism presented in your letter
and warmly congratulate you for the stated commitment to the
National Parks Idea. I continue to feel, however, that a clearer
statement and more emphatic element of leadership is needed from
The White House. The appointment of a career man to lead the
National Park Service is nice, but frankly raises further
concern about the commitment to change and to imaginative new
concepts in Park management. I sincerely question whether the
necessary leadership is going to come from the NPS at this time
and under the present staffing. Like many old bureaucracies, the
Park Service needs a real and recurring push from "the top" -
and that means the President.
I must further state the deep dismay with which I and, I
think, all of my environmentalist friends, view the selection of
Stanley Hathaway as Secretary of the Interior. This appointment
has caused a major trauma in the environmental community, and
has grievously eroded the credibility of the Administration's
commitment to a positive environmental ethic. I believe you
underestimate the depth and strength of the new environmental
concern in America. What is done is done, of course. May I,
Mr. President, suggest an ameliorative next step? The appointment
of a strong Under Secretary of Interior, acceptable to environmental
President Gerald Ford
Page two
groups, would be very much the most constructive decision you
could make. The present Assistant Secretary of Interior,
Nathaniel P. Reed, would without question be the candidate
most able to "redress the balance." Bill Turnage and I would
be honored to work with your staff and our environmentalist
colleagues in effecting a new and progressive modus operandi.
Again, I implore you to have a high regard for the eternal
realities of our physical environment. The economic crisis is
a short-term phenomenon; our "little planet" is the only one we
have, and we must have it for a long time. A balance between
economies and environment is possible. Indeed, it must be
possible, if we are all to survive and progress. Your
leadership, Mr. President, must -- as on the Parks issue -- be
dynamic and not passive.
I would like to ask for a further commitment to new leader-
ship in the area of the National Parks. Your letter mentions that
a Task Force has been established to take a fresh look at the
Park Service. This gives me little comfort, as the Task Force
is totally internal (NPS) and led by a tired, superannuated
bureaucrat from the Santa Fe, New Mexico office. What kind of
new and truly imaginative broad-scale thinking can we expect
from a group of that calibre and composition? Why not a
distinguished Presidential-level Commission to define the role
of National Parks in their second century? Do not the Parks
deserve the very best minds and hearts our nation has?
In closing, Mr. President, I wish to renew my personal
pleasfor leadership from you. The Office of Management and Budget
casts a pall over every agency in Washington, and even Cabinet
Officers cannot alter the course of government-by-accountant.
Only you can set the priorities. Only you can stimulate new
approaches and new levels of energy. I deeply believe that the
American people would respond, in the Bicentennial Year, to bold
leadership from you on a program of National Parks for the Future.
Thank you, Mr. President, for taking the time to read my
plea. I hope we can work together in the months and years ahead.
I regret my inability to join you at the State Dinner tomorrow,
but, as I explained to Mrs. Ford, I must be in Tucson to receive
an honorary degree from the University of Arizona. Meanwhile, I
have invited your daughter to come to Yosemite National Park in
June and study at my annual photography workshop. If she accepts, FORD
rest assured that we will look after her with "parental concern.
If she is seriously interested in photography, I believe she
LIBRARY
would find the workshop a remarkable learning experience.
President Gerald Ford
Page three
My warmest personal regards to you and Mrs. Ford, as well as
to that superb young photographer who is doing SO much to raise
both the public's esteem for photography as well as its
understanding of your work as President. It has been one of
David. the great opportunities of my life to know you, Mrs. Ford and
Warmest personal regards,
Ansel Adams
cc: David Hume Kennerly
FORD 2 GERALD LIBRARY
Non-Art?
n|'Not When
You See It!
By Alan Cohen
Special to The Washington Star
Ansel Adams has been photographing
the untrammeled splendor of the Ameri-
can West for over a half century. His he-
roic, gorgeous landscapes. and nature
studies - mountains, forests, lakes,
deserts and oceans - are on view at the
Lunn Gallery here through August.
At 74, Adams is, perhaps, the most re-
nowned living photographer. Yet in the
context of Twentieth Century art, Ansel
Adams is an anomoly. His subject matter
is familiar and "beautiful," his approach
traditional, and his vision comforting and
serene.
As a young man, Adams knew that the
old equations of Art, Beauty, Nature, and
Truth were dissolving. Artists and intel-
lectuals of the New York avant-garde
chided him for his naivete and provin-
cialism. Although befriended by Alfred
Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Marin
(among many others), none of their ex-
citement with modernism is evidenced in
his work.
ADAMS NEVER succumbed to the
chiding of his friends or to the sheer
vitality and lure of the new art.
A chaste Adams would unabashedly
admit, "I believe in growing things, and
in things which have grown and died
magnificently." For Adams, photogra-
phy is a means of affirming "the enor-
mous beauty of the world" and of
"achieving an ultimate happiness." He
persists in his belief that art is "some-
thing almost religious in quality."
See ADAMS, D-2
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, JUI
Notes on People
Betty Ford May Speak at Women's Parley
As more countries begin to
name delegations headed by
their "first ladies" - or by
Cabinet-level ministers or
prominent women, and some-
times by women who are
both talla
Wash. POST- - 6/11/75
Seeking a 'Women's Year' Talk
First Lady Betty Ford is
Free Course
being urged to deliver the
Susan Ford is a guest of
Personalities
main address for the United
Ansel Adams at Yosemite
States at the International
National Park and is not
Women's Year conference
paving for the 73-vear-old
by Mrs. Ford
Wash Post. June 10,1975
Personalities
A Pair of Arrivals
Steven and Jack Ford are than display in Playboy
staying at the White House magazine."
now, for the first time since
The parks director, Alfred
their father became Presi- Howard, said that "breast-
dout and Susan who endi feeding is a natural and
Washington Post 6/11/75
Seeking a 'Women's Year' Talk by Mrs. Ford
Lady Betty Ford is
Free Course
first. After that the idea of dent Harry S. Truman, was
urged to deliver the
Personalities
Susan Ford is a guest of
suicide had vanished.
graduated from Milton
address for the United
Ansel Adams at Yosemite
at the International
Zappa Zapped
Academy in Milton, Mass.
chatted with Ethel Kennedy,
that the trees wert at the
National Park and is not
last weekend.
Year conference
her daughter Courtney, her
end of the runway.
American rock singer
paying for the 73-year-old
His father, Clifton Daniel
20 in Mexico City. A
escort Bob Woodward, Ray
Croce's hit records in-
Frank Zappa lost a court
nature photographer's 12-
Schoenke, the Redskins'
Sr., associate editor of The
cluded "Don't Mess Around
House spokeswoman
day course, a White House
lineman, and television cor-
claim for $19,000 yesterday
New York Times, gave the
tendery that them in
With Jim" and "Bad. Bad
over a canceled in
ARTS
ANSEL ADAMS IN THE WHITE HOUSE
AND BEFORE A BELOVED RIVAL'S CAMERA
COURTESY OF N.Y. GRAPHIC SOCIETY-O ANSEL ADAMS
Ansel Adams's 1944 photograph of
snowy Yosemite now hangs oppo-
site Gerald Ford's desk at the
White House.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Betty Ford loved the picture, she
told Adams as they toured the Lin-
coln Bedroom, because "you can
see the clouds move."
22
T ogether they represent 133 years of
Though nearly a generation older
maker named Roi Partridge, in the
shutter-snapping. So when Ansel Ad-
than Adams, a fact she announces tri-
nude atop Mt. Rainier. "You couldn't
ams, 73, the dean of nature photogra-
umphantly, Cunningham is no less
chase a naked man around Rainier
phers, got together recently with 91-
industrious. She made her first photo-
those days," says Cunningham, who
year-old photographic doyenne Imo-
graph in 1901 and is still hard at the job
shelved the series for 50 years.
gen Cunningham, the conversation
-leaping into and out of cars and
As for her pictures of Adams (which
was professional-and predictable.
through heavy doors without assis-
she took at the request of PEOPLE),
"Now, Ansel," declared the no-
tance, gleefully flashing the peace sign
she said ecstatically: "Oh, look, I ac-
nonsense nonagenarian as she arrived
to hitchhikers on the road. Famous for
tually got him to frown. Ansel is such a
at Adams's Carmel, Calif. home, "I'm
her portraits, she has been honored
smiley person. In fact, he's too damn
going to take your picture, and then
for her pictures of such friends as Mar-
nice." And Imogen? "I have a terrible
The Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop
Bill Turnaz - Business Manager - general aide
Can refer press questions re Ansel Adams /803
Once the Seminar has started (209) 372-4511
Susan is going as Ansel Adams' guest - she is paying her own
air fare
28th year for June workshop in Yosemite -- it specializes in
creative photography
June 8-18 - intense 10-day workshop
Includes about 68 students; in addition, 9 professional photographers
who teach; all the photographers who teach have had some impact in
creative photography; 9 staff assistants who help, as well.
Everything is done in small groups of 8 to 12 each; many of the
classes are held outside; much of the photography is done with
a polaroid so students can have an "instant analysis"
workshops are very flexible,
i.e., afternoon session might be with Ansel Adams -- maybe
analyzing photos -- or individualized critique sessions;
i.e., darkroom sessions, showing cropping, etc.
i.e., evenings might be a slide show or lecture, usually
end at 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. -- rapping follows with
other students and instructors
9:00 a.m. is usually starting bime, but for instance
might have dawn photos -- it varies a lot
Emphasis is on informal, flexible schedule
Headquarters is small gallery in Yosemite -- The Ansel Adams
Gallery (darkroom is there). Note: probably shouldn't release
unless pressed -- the people know around there
National Park Service
Ansel Adams lives in Carmel, California; he met with President in
late January to talk about National Parks -- then had lunch with
Betty Ford and she took them on tour; mentioned how interested
Susan Ford was in photography-because of that, and the President
and her brothers relationship with National Parks, Ansel Adams
invited her.
FORD & LIBRARY
Ansel Adams is described as Americas most renown creative
photographer in the country - photographer as artist; not
really "landscape photography," but does have long relationship
with national parks. Born in San Francisco in 1902 - nose broken
in San Francisco earthquake in 1906.
Pretty much the first 68-70 who apply - invited Susan a month
ago -- held a spot open in case she could come (they always have
many more applicants than they can accept). They hoped to meet
in San Francisco in January, but schedules didn't jibe.
Students will stay -- either campout in the park (1,000 square mile
park - California) or in cabins or hotel rooms. Most stay at
Yosemite Lodge -- rustic -- central accomodation.
Age of students -- all over the map -- range from 16-17 to 70's;
usually one-third students; one-third a variety of doctors,
lawyers; one-third photographers making a living at it; very
broad range of abilities.
Ansel Adams' basic philosophical concept is the inspiration of
natural beauty and photography; reason for the workshop in
Yosemite is correlation between natural emotional feelings and
the photos that result.
Students use their own cameras. Susan has a NIKO Mat (35 mm)
Two of the professional photographers -- Arnold Newman, renown
American portraitist, New York, and Philip Hyde, color photography
specialist, Taylorville.
GERALD FORD