Remnant Beauty
An Exhibition at The Ansel Adams Gallery
Remnant Beauty
An Exhibition of Photographs by Roman Loranc
Hosted by The Ansel Adams Gallery
August 4th through September 28th, 2024
About the Artist
Some photographers believe their strongest work comes from exploring their immediate surroundings. “After photographing California over two decades, I think of myself as a regional photographer, but that does not mean that photography cannot be understood beyond the region. In fact, extensive travel across Europe has solidified my belief that the ancient groves of California native oaks are just as sacred as the holy spaces and cathedrals of Europe.” For this reason he makes occasional photographic forays into Poland and Lithuania.
“I’m fascinated by the ancient churches of my homeland,” he says. “These are holy spaces where millions of people have prayed for hundreds of years. They are places of great humility, and remind us how brief our lives are. I feel the same way when I’m photographing ancient groves of native oaks in California. It is healthy to remember that we are often linked to the natural world in ways we don’t even suspect. I am grateful to have the opportunity to experience this through my photography everyday.
“I think about how interconnected the world is,” Loranc says. “When I’m out on a crisp winter’s morning, shooting a stand of native oaks, I see oak galls hanging from the trees. These were once used to make the pyrogallol chemicals I use to develop my negatives. So the oak trees I am photographing played a part in the developer I use to process my negatives of those trees. It is healthy to remember that we are often linked to the natural world in ways we don’t even suspect.”
Roman Loranc is a self-taught photographer who began his journey as an artist in the early 1960s when he received a 35mm camera for his first communion. Over time he learned to print and develop on his own and continues to do so. Roman uses a 4x5 Linhof field camera and shoots the majority of his photographs with a 210mm Nikkor lens, using Kodak’s classic Tri-X film, and prints on multi-grade fiber paper. Roman shapes the photo from start to finish. The innate drama of the landscapes is reproduced through a variable split-toning (sepia and selenium) technique. The photographer does all the printing, spotting, and archival mounting.
About The Ansel Adams Gallery
In the summer of 1902, a landscape painter and political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle by the name of Harry Best took an excursion to Yosemite Valley to camp and paint. Little did he know that this trip would have, indirectly, such an impact on so many, or that we, his descendants, would be telling this story now, over a century later.
That summer he met Anne Rippey, a beautiful young woman working as an assistant in one of the photography studios in the Valley. After a whirlwind courtship, the two married on July 28 at the base of Bridal Veil Fall. After the ceremony, they stopped the incoming stagecoach to have everyone celebrate with them. (Rumor has it that several men were courting Ms. Rippey that summer, and Harry’s success lay in his persistence and having sent back to San Francisco for an engagement ring).
That winter, Harry applied to the U.S. Army, Yosemite administrators at the time, for a permit to operate a studio business. The following summer, in 1902, the Bests opened their studio in a tent in Yosemite Valley. Thereafter, Harry and Anne returned to Yosemite each summer, building the original Studio in the Old Yosemite Village in 1904.
Best’s Studio was a family affair from the earliest. Not only was it a husband and wife team producing and selling paintings, painted photographs, and photo finishing, but the Studio also represented Arthur and Alice Best, Harry’s brother and sister-in-law. Harry was successful both as a businessman and painter: Best’s Studio is the last of several artist’s studios that were established around the turn of the century, and paintings of his have hung in the White House and San Francisco’ s Bohemian Club for many years. His, and the company’s, success is attributed to a deep commitment to Yosemite National Park and the desire to share and create a positive Park experience for the visitors.
Harry and Anne’ s daughter Virginia was born in 1904, and grew up spending summers in Yosemite until 1926 when the family took up full time residence in the Valley. In those years, and for a long time thereafter, Best’s Studio was the social center of the Valley . It housed the only piano in the Park and the lovely singing voice of Virginia Best.
Ansel Adams first came to Yosemite National Park in 1916 and returned in 1920 as a caretaker for the Sierra Club’ s LeConte Lodge, still planning a career as a concert pianist. This goal brought him in close contact with the Bests, and Ansel soon found himself visiting the Studio as much for the company as to practice the piano. On January 2, 1928, Ansel Adams and Virginia Best were married in the newly constructed Best’s Studio in the “new village” in Yosemite Valley.
The addition of Ansel Adams to the family had a major impact on the business. At the time of the wedding, Ansel’s career as a photographer was just beginning. He had published, with the help of Albert Bender, his first portfolio in 1927, “Parmelian Prints of the High Sierra.” The Studio and Ansel had a symbiotic business relationship: Ansel providing high quality photographic material that appealed to visitors, and the Studio providing an outlet for his work and on-going financial support to a struggling artist. In this vein, The Ansel Adams Gallery continues to seek out and represent promising contemporary artists.
Ansel and Virginia had two children, Michael, born in 1933 in Yosemite, and Anne, born in 1935 in San Francisco. The family split its time between San Francisco, where Ansel still maintained the family home, and Yosemite. During the Second World War the family moved to Yosemite year round, and the children grew up in this idyllic spot. Ansel and Virginia published a children’ s story book, Michael and Anne in Yosemite , which still occasionally becomes available on the secondary market.
Harry Best passed away in 1936, and Virginia inherited the business that she had been running for some years. Around this time, Ansel and Virginia conscientiously shifted the focus of the Studio to offer merchandise and services that fit with an ethic to respect the landscape and draw inspiration and creativity from the beauty of the environment. This ethic continues to guide The Ansel Adams Gallery, and, while the standard is high, we think we have been successful in finding and developing artwork and services that fit this ethic. Reading was a life long passion of Virginia’s, and her interest embodied itself in a fine selection of books, and the book selection continues to be outstanding and widely complemented. Ansel and Virginia published a number of books, cards, and other photographic related items.
The Photography Workshop program began in 1940, and was one of the first photographic education programs in the country. The original workshops were one week long with several instructors, and groups of 10 to 12 students worked with different instructors in field, classroom, and darkroom sessions. Many participants have told us that the workshop program with Ansel and the other professional photographers was a life shaping experience.
Virginia Best Adams operated the Studio until 1971, when she and Ansel turned the company over to Michael and Jeanne Adams, their son and daughter-in-law. During this time, the name of the business was changed to The Ansel Adams Gallery to reflect the primary focus of photography, and the powerful legacy that Ansel had in photography and environmental conservation. Photography and conservation are embodied in the person and work of Ansel Adams, and it is the purpose of the Gallery to encourage the values, efforts, and sense of awe that Ansel held and personified.
About the Exhibition
The image is captured
As are my thoughts and memories
The world moves on . . . but a remnant beauty remains. Responding to a moment, heightened by a well honed sense of recognition, an artist is tasked not only with the harnessing of time, but a sense of its mystique as well. What makes the photographer, or photograph, unique is that their results, more than any other art form, mimic our own senses. That is to say, our experiences, our thoughts, and our memories are photographic in nature.
Those three lines of aforementioned prose are that of Roman Loranc; recognizing the physical act of making a photograph, he succinctly substantiates the significance of the moment: our identity is embedded in the recording of our singular experiences that came to us, but which we also wish to share with those around us.
I look at two of Roman’s most well-known and resonating images: ‘Private Road with Clouds’ & ‘Homeward Bound.’ Each photograph represents a fleeting moment in time, one that is pronounced by the more ephemeral elements of each scene, such as passing clouds and a thin layer of snow. Both likewise are grounded with the presence of a terrestrial permanence: a horizon. Meandering there way between these two earthbound extremes are roads, anchored within each composition and seemingly pertinent; perhaps not overly-traveled, but clearly paramount to the unknown destination just beyond sight. The moment and the mystique are undeniable. Our thoughts are given uninhibited reign about where the path might lead us, and our memories of such a place are certain to succumb to whimsy.
What we are left with is a remnant beauty - a sense of a place that speaks to our minds and hearts, for it seems undeniably real to our own experience, but exists only in the form of a dream. For the photographer, the world may move on, but as a viewer, we are left with a shared moment ripe with intrigue. Everything is captured, and captivated.
Remnant Beauty: Photographs by Roman Loranc, will be on display at The Ansel Adams Gallery between August 4th and September 28th, 2024.
Remnant Beauty
Private Road with Clouds
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Morning Reflection
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Oak in Rain
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Dream of a Tree
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Two Men Fishing
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Lavender Farm
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Remnant Beauty
Homeward Bound
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Highway 1 Purchase Artwork
Moving Train, Ukraine
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El Capitan, Yosemite
Athos Bay
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Silver Gray, Yosemite Purchase
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Awini Trail
City of Golden Shadows
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The Cloud
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Tree of Life
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Cathedral Oaks
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Please contact Curator Evan Russel with any questions
evan@anseladams.com
Note that all sizes listed are nominal. Each print is hand made by the artist in their darkroom. Images shown are representative of the prints, but variations in printing and toning can occur due to the nature of their making. All special orders will be fulfilled as promptly as possible, which we expect to take between 4 and 5 weeks on average.
Remnant Beauty
August 4th through September 28th, 2024
Reception for the Artist August 23rd from 1-3pm
