Svend Erik Hendriksen

Last week's news that Rick Norsigian was living the Antiques Roadshow dream when he bought a box of Ansel Adams negatives at a garage sale made quite an impression--at least on the press. News media from China to England, led by CNN, have been following the story. But the tenor of coverage, which initially trumpeted the authentication efforts, appears to be shifting. In addition to the Uncle Earl revelation — the Bay Citizen's story is here — it appears that Norsigian may face legal action from the Ansel Adams Trust for selling the "Ansel Adams" prints, currently priced at $7,500 a piece.

People have been weighing in on the issue from all corners of the globe as well. The Bay Citizen reader and Greenlandic photo art researcher Svend Erik Hendriksen sent in the image featured above, comparing an Adams belonging to the Oakland Museum of California with a Norgisian print. He found more similarities between Uncle Earl and Norsigian than between Adams and Norsigian.

But, like so much evidence found, it's unclear what exactly it means that the snow cover is different in the three photos, since Adams was such a prolific photographer, repeatedly shooting the popular and photogenic Yosemite National Park. In a phone call, Mill Valley resident William Turnage, managing trustee of the Ansel Adams Trust — who was literally hoarse from talking to so many reporters — laid out some key points about the situation:

• Ansel Adams would never have lost a box of negatives.

The Norsigian team claims that Adams lost the box of negatives while teaching a class in Pasadena as a way of accounting for their time spent in a Los Angeles salvage yard before hitting the Fresno garage sale. Turnage finds this to be impossible. "Ansel made 44,000 negatives and all of them are at the Center for Creative Photography. He was incredibly careful about taking care of them," said Turnage. When Adams lived in San Francisco, Turnage said, he kept them in a bank vault and when he moved to Carmel, he created a cement bunker in the hill in back of his house. "It had six- to eight-inch-thick walls, it was temperature-controlled, and the only thing in it were the negatives. No one was allowed to go in besides Ansel himself," Turnage said. And if people didn't take the hint from the concrete walls, Adams added another deterrent: on the "great huge steel" vault door, Adams painted "Danger High Voltage."

• An Ansel Adams print is, by definition, one printed by Ansel Adams.

For as strongly as Turnage wants to refute the idea that these prints are lost Adams', he also says that the debate is pointless. "Ansel didn't just clomp out prints. He went into the darkroom and every single print he made and sold was signed by him," Turnage said. The man published six books of printmaking; he was a famed printmaker as well as photographer and told Turnage that a negative was the equivalent of a composer score: the blueprint. "He massively massaged the negatives, dodging, burning," Turnage said, "A conductor conducts every score differently — a conductor conducts even the same score differently every time."

• The $200 million figure is grossly inflated.

One of the things that Turnage found most press-savvy about the Norsigian authentication effort is their use of the $200 million estimated value of the box of negatives. They claim that they arrived at this figure with more than one appraiser, but Turnage scoffed. If the 65 Norsigian negatives were worth that much, he said, then the holdings of the Center for Creative Photography would amount to $135 billion.

As for legal action, Turnage said he couldn't comment directly on what the trust has planned, but did point out that the Ansel Adams name was copyrighted property and can't be used for commercial purposes. As the L.A. Times detailed in a blog post, one sticking point with a copyright claim is that Turnage et al would have to state that they believed the Norsigian prints were genuine, which is not the case. Peter, for his part, believes that he is on safe ground regarding copyright, telling the Times that the copyright has expired since the photos were taken over 70 years ago.

Where does this put Uncle Earl? Well, Turnage hasn't examined the Uncle Earl prints in relation to the Norsigian negatives, but he did say that "there is a greater chance that Uncle Earl made them than Ansel Adams." Longtime Adams assistant John Sexton wrote in an e-mail newsletter that, "I would advise people to think carefully before rushing out to order prints from these glass plates thinking you are purchasing a photograph by Ansel Adams. But then again... it might be nice to add a beautiful image by 'Uncle Earl' to your collection."