I have been going through and re-reading many of my old "American Photo" magazines, this quote was from a review in the Feb/1980 issue.
"...light is unpredictable, intractable stuff for photographers. Find it just as you want it, render it faithfully, and there is still no guarantee that light will do your bidding. How else to explain the way Atget's faded old prints so exquisitely convey the bittersweet essence of melancholy, while the exactingly crafted, light-enthralled masterpieces of Ansel Adams seem devoid of high emotion, eliciting a kind of respect for the technique of the artist rather than the surge of ecstasy that one hopes for? It is not just that Atget's world has changed irretrievably, as he feared it would, or (to steal from Dorothy Parker) that the Rockies are beautiful but dumb. The reason for the difference is that thou Adams has the Zone system and the scientist's eye, Atget has the gift of light, unexplainable and inimitable.
Like any artistic gift, this special feel for light can be misdirected, squandered, mysteriously lost or--worst of all--depended upon entirely. Great light does not by itself make great photographs, and in order order to use its power well a photograph must have intelligence, control and a persistent sense of what he's doing with his pictures."
