Earlier in the week, I wrote about a box full of lost Ansel Adams photos that were bought at a yard sale for basically nothing and that might be actually worth $200 million dollars. Assuming they’re actually the work of Ansel Adams, that is. However, since the news of the photos broke and spread, there have been several people who have stepped forward to say, “Hey, those aren’t Ansel Adams photos!” One person says the photos were taken by her “Uncle Earl”; others believe the pictures are the work of Fresno-based photographer Pop Laval.
“I’m looking at the picture that’s hanging on my wall and I knew that Ansel Adams didn’t take them,” said Miriam Walton. “I knew my Uncle Earl took them.” Uncle Earl, AKA Earl Brooks, was a proto-hippie and photographer who worked in Yosemite National Park, as did Adams. Plus, the 87-year-old Walton has one of the so-called lost Ansel Adams photographs hanging in her home, with a handwritten “Uncle Earl” on the photo from her late father’s hand.
If it’s not an old hippie named Earl, then another school of thoght says the photos were taken by Pop Laval. This is due both to the content of the photos and the style of the classification and the way the envelopes were made. Interestingly, Pop’s son Jerry Laval interned with Ansel Adams, says his daughter Elizabeth Laval, who runs the Pop Laval foundation. Of course, Laval’s own meticulous numbers and records say he was nowhere near Yosemite National Park when the photo negatives were shot, so he might be out of the running to.
Are the photos real Ansel Adams photos? We may never know for sure, as experts tend not to agree on these things. I’d like to think that they are. After all, Adams sold prints of his work (or gave them away), and Pop Laval’s records are probably well cared-for since he has a foundation and all.
Tags: Ansel Adams, lost Ansel Adams photos might be taken by others, Pop Laval, Earl Brooks, Uncle Earl, hoaxes, scams, lost Ansel Adams photos might be fake, mysteries, Miriam Walton
