Let’s start off with the assumption that creative endeavors begin with basic building blocks accessible to all – Writers work with a set of characters (A-Z), Composers work with a set of keys or tones, Painters work with a basic set of colors . . . you get the idea. What makes a creative endeavor interesting is the “creative vocabulary”, the supply of expressive techniques or devises a writer, composer, or visual artist brings to sequencing the basic building blocks. I’m using the term “creative vocabulary” but if it helps, you can think of this as an artist’s “style” and you’d be close, but in my mind style is the manifestation of an artist’s creative vocabulary.

While all composers use the same notes, no one is going to confuse Aaron Copeland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” with Beethoven’s  “Fifth Symphony.” Their creative vocabularies lead them to radically different organizations of the notes. Likewise Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King used the same 26 letters of the English alphabet and even explored similar subject matter, yet no one is going to confuse The Pit and the Pendulum with The Shining.

It’s easy to see this in artists working in different centuries; society is different, technology changes, even the language changes. So let’s take a look at three photographs I think illustrates the point: Ansel Adams “Frozen Lake and Cliffs” 1932 – Edward Weston “Iceberg Lake” 1937 – and Brett Weston “Mendenhall Glacier” 1973.

These three images share many common elements; they were created within a span of about 40 years by photographers who knew each other very well, they were made using traditional black and white materials (gelatin silver film and paper), they contain similar subject matter (earth, ice, and water) and they all are in the “modernist” tradition of compressed space – flat planes with little discernable depth. Yet each image has the distinct vocabulary of their maker. 

Frozen Lake and Cliffs, 1932
© The Ansel Adams Publishing Trust

Frozen Lake and Cliffs, 1932 This image has a sense of grandeur prevalent in much of Ansel’s work. By emphasizing the cliffs and selecting a longer than normal lens on his 4x5 view camera, Ansel intuitively flattens the perspective giving the image it’s modernist look. In his book “Examples” Ansel writes: “This photograph represents my transitional period into Group f64 philosophy, which emphasized very sharp focus and full tonal scale, in reaction to the visual softness of the Pictorialism popular at the time.”

It is interesting to note that in Ansel’s archives there are 5 variations of this scene. John Szarkowski writes about them in detail and concludes by saying “… the variants remind us of the difficulty of the art we practice and serve, and of the necessity of achieving and maintaining the passion and the energy, psychic and physical, that might allow us to continue beyond the interesting.” (see - Untitled 37 “Ansel Adams 1902-1984” Friends of Photography, 1984)

Iceberg Lake, 1937
© Center for Creative Photography

Iceberg Lake, 1937 Here Edward presents us with a more complicated image. As the viewer explores this image they find multiple layers: background, reflection, floating ice, these could overwhelm, but a very skilled craftsman composed the image and keeps the eye moving around the frame. True to his creative vocabulary Edward uses a quieter tonal range.

This image was taken during Edward’s first Guggenheim Fellowship on a trip to Yosemite with his second wife Charis Wilson, Ansel Adams and Ron Partridge (son of Imogen Cunningham). Charis wrote in “California and the West” – “… there it was; a little lake with cakes of ice and snow floating over its inky water; across it, rising steeply from the water’s edge, the Clyde Minaret, exposing a diminutive glacier on its chest. Rich hunting grounds for Edward; he worked away like mad on icebergs, lake, minarets, tree stumps, snow and rocks.” This is one of about seven images of Iceberg Lake Edward made that day, at least four of which he liked well enough to exhibit at various times. (see - “Edward Weston: Photographs from the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography” by Amy Conger, 1992)

Mendenhall Glacier, 1973
© The Brett Weston Archive L.L.C

Mendenhall Glacier, 1973 Brett’s image could be seen as a melding of his father’s complex composition, and Ansel’s flattened perspective. Yet through his use of strong backlighting and a bolder tonal range he has abstracted forms of light and dark. This abstraction is enhanced through cropping and lack of a distinct horizon line creating an ambiguity of scale. Through out his career, Brett’s “creative vocabulary” made use of a brash bold palette, never allowing the viewer to peer too deeply into the shadows.

Three very similar images yet each carries their maker’s “creative vocabulary.” The images by Ansel and Brett are among their most recognizable images, notable in part for defining our understanding of their individual styles. So is there a dictionary defining an artist’s creative vocabulary? If only it were that simple. Trying to define an artist’s creative vocabulary is what critics and art historians make careers of. Artists themselves generally only scratch the surface when it comes to defining their creative vocabulary. From the artist’s perspective much of their vocabulary comes from their sub-conscious and evolves intuitively. It is not something that springs fully formed into their conscious mind.

As these three photographs demonstrate, when an artist achieves control of their “creative vocabulary” they make the process look easy. Ansel was a master at creating images that appear deceptively “normal” – inviting the viewer to imagine that they too could walk by and spot this image. Nothing could be further from the truth. In “Examples” he provides the following anecdote about “Frozen Lake and Cliffs” - “On the day that this photograph was made there were several other photographers nearby, some very good ones who were then far more technically advanced than I. The scene was before us all, but no one else responded with creative interest. Cedric Wright . . . observed what I was doing and, half in jest, set his camera up in my location. I saw his print later; he did not have a lens of appropriate focal length and he overexposed his negative. On seeing my print he exclaimed, “Jeez! Why didn’t I see that!”

Why indeed!

- Philip