From CNN

Experts: Ansel Adams photos found at garage sale worth $200 million

"Those boxes contained 65 glass negatives created by famed nature photographer Ansel Adams in the early period of his career."

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/07/27/ansel.adams.discovery/#fbid=lT_Vb9RjQW-


I know, I know . . . you young whipper snappers are going to say �what is a negitive?�

But seriously.  What is interesting is the statement in the article:

�Norsigian, who has spent the last decade trying to prove the worth of his discovery, is now ready to cash in -- by selling original prints of the photographs to museums and collectors.�

Who owns the copyrights to the negatives found?  At the back of the Ansel Adams Calendars it has �Copyright by the Trustees of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust�.  I would think the copyright to those negatives still belong to the Adams family or Trust.

If Norsigian spent 10 years on this project so far I'll bet he's got good legal advice on his rights to sell prints. Maybe the glass plates aren't considered a protected work until printed. Just guessing.

In any case he owns the plates and can sell them or donate them to anyone.

If Norsigian spent 10 years on this project so far I'll bet he's got good legal advice on his rights to sell prints. Maybe the glass plates aren't considered a protected work until printed. Just guessing.

In any case he owns the plates and can sell them or donate them to anyone.

Of course Mr. Norsigian is allowed to own the glass negatives but the question has to do with the rights to use those plates for commercial means.  As a painter, when I sell a canvas to a client that client owns the painting but not the rights to use that work for commercial means.  For example, the law in California is typical:

�Under California Civil Code 982, when a person buys a work of fine art, the reproduction rights remain with the artist or the artist's heirs, legatees, (persons taking under a will) or personal representative until it passes into the public domain.�

Or like RacePhoto reminded us about the 1923 cutoff, maybe those rights have passed into the public domain,
and as louoates stated . . . . the buyer has had time to get good legal advice.

I should have been more clear. He can sell (or lease) the owned plates to anyone...ESPECIALLY someone who does have rights to reproduce the images for commercial use. That would be worth more, right?

Right, that would work . . . . . .  if that was his only option.

I do look forward seeing some more work from the master.

I wonder if he'd be considered a 'master' of photography if he started out today. Don't get me wrong I like his photographs but a lot of that is because of what he went through to create them in the times that he did, not for the actual photographs themselves.

At the time there was no internet or 2,000 How-To books or hundreds of tours to take you to the exact place to put your tripod or much else. It's impossible to speculate how someone would do today based on their historic performance.

Isn't it only a print made by the artist at approximately the same time as the negative most valuable?

Probably, but in this case those glass negs sure seem to be worth a lot. I guess it's that "never before been published" scenario. I'm off to the garage sales

Last month I attended an Adams exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum. I almost didn't go because I've seen so much of his work before and thought I wouldn't learn much. Boy, was I wrong! For the first time I saw exhibited his architectural work, mainly of houses and some other buildings. It was amazing how he used his landscape compositional skills in this work. His framing of structures using trees, clouds and other natural objects taught me much about shooting otherwise mundane things.

I'm hoping that this newly discovered work of his --however convoluted the eventual outcome of copyright issues-- will contain other educational moments.

With the ignorance of many of the stock site reviewers at Istock, Crestock and Veer, those photos, if they were submitted, would probably be rejected for lighting (because they are in black and white) and composition. If it were possible for someone to go photograph these places with the exact same conditions and same composition, then submit them, it sure would be interesting to see what the results would be.

[
You would need a large format camera, not the DSLR equipment most of us are using. These negatives are from a 6-1/2 x 8-1/2 inch glass plate camera.  That is a BIG negative with LOTS of information!

Even so, you can be sure there would be noise (i.e. grain).

Don't we have it good with a few Flash Cards and a battery charger.

Not really. I would very much like to carry around that much stuff (especially with a car!) to create some stunning unique photos. (Instead of the gazillion mediocre snapshots that people create all the time)

Maybe it's me being mean but I don't think that original negs are worth anything like the price quoted. Yes, they are of historical/photographic interest but you can't put 'em on a wall in a frame and admire the beauty of them like you could a print made from them by the hand of the master.
Any print now made from them is worth what it costs to make the print (IMHO) because hundreds or thousands of prints can now be made from them. Maybe I get the feeling that this is getting all hyped up (just like everything else these days it seems).
The current owner of the negs, submitted them for research 10 years ago. Would have been an awful shame had they turned out not to be by Ansel Adams. Lotta bills to be paid to all those researchers and, of course, some auction house will be rubbing hands gleefully at the prospect of all that commission on their sale.

Desire is the father of thought. Mebbee