Originally Posted by EmmaG
Not to mention the incredible genius it took to get someone up there to take those images.

Genius? Most of the genius involved came from non-Americans.

Talent, organization and hard work there were in plenty. These are qualities for which the pedestrian American character has a flair.

Originally Posted by Chuck Howard
I would submit that the photography of Ansel Adams, who took "some photographs of natural objects" should be regarded as "high creativity in the arts."

I don't claim that photography can't be art. Obviously, it can.

But the NASA Earth photograph is not an artistic creation. It could just as easily have been taken by a ship-board computer. No creativity at all was involved.

Ansel Adams was a talented, creative man. To call him a genius is probably going too far.

By a curious chemistry of mental association, he reminds me of John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, who were Americans with at least a touch of genius.

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