What would Ansel Adams have done?

jerry12953

jerry12953

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Following on from a couple of interesting discussions elsewhere on here, I've been wondering about this.

Had he been born fifty years later, and bearing in mind his mastery of film processing and printing, would Ansel Adams have welcomed and mastered digital processing? How far would he have gone down the manipulation route?

I'd be interested to hear thoughts on this. If this has been discussed elsewhere, are there any pointers to further reading?
 
He would have invented overcooked HDR!
 
Ansel Adams quote "
"50% of the Creative Process Occurred in the Dark Room"

He always aimed to reproduce a full tonal range and dodging and burning played a big part in that. I think he would have loved digital.
 
ST4 said:
He'd have shot digital like the rest of us and took nice landscapes :D
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Actually most of his work was commercial, which paid the bills and allowed him to take his personal interests of landscapes.
His commercial work is actually very interesting.
 
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arclight said:
Ansel Adams quote "
"50% of the Creative Process Occurred in the Dark Room"

He always aimed to reproduce a full tonal range and dodging and burning played a big part in that. I think he would have loved digital.
Click to expand...

Actually, after 1930 when Adams met photographer Paul Strand ( whose images had a powerful impact on Adams) he moved him away from the heavily process pictorial style and began to pursue “straight photography,” in which the clarity of the lens was emphasized, and the final print gave no appearance of being manipulated in the camera or the darkroom. Adams was soon to become straight photography’s mast articulate and insistent champion.

You should see some of his Group f/64 work with Weston.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_f/64
There's quite a bit in the Museum of Modern Art but when I visited San Franciso the museum has been shut mostly this year for building work and extensions
 
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A ,lot of Adams commercial work is apparently in private collections, companies etc, who now recognise the value. However, the Westin St Francis hotel in San Francisco have displayed the work he did for them in their lobby, by the Concierge. There's also some in the hotel in yosemite, both series of works I was lucky to see.
 
Byker28i said:
Actually most of his work was commercial, which paid the bills and allowed him to take his personal interests of landscapes.
His commercial work is actually very interesting.
Click to expand...

Although, if the samples you posted elsewhere are typical, I suspect the main difficulty would have been how to get that damned great tripod and huge plate camera into any position which showed the subject matter...
 
Byker28i said:
They had copies in his gallery in Yosemite
http://www.anseladams.com/
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I'll just nip down and get a copy.......;). I see they're available on amazon. Might be easier.

ST4 said:
Quite substancial. Certainly blending, curves, levels, contrast, sharpening. Basically the tools to get the right result from the RAW...
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I can't believe he would have made composites though......
 
Byker28i said:
Actually, after 1930 when Adams met photographer Paul Strand ( whose images had a powerful impact on Adams) he moved him away from the heavily process pictorial style and began to pursue “straight photography,” in which the clarity of the lens was emphasized, and the final print gave no appearance of being manipulated in the camera or the darkroom. Adams was soon to become straight photography’s mast articulate and insistent champion.

You should see some of his Group f/64 work with Weston.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_f/64
There's quite a bit in the Museum of Modern Art but when I visited San Franciso the museum has been shut mostly this year for building work and extensions
Click to expand...


Plenty of reading material there.....thanks. I shall have to re-visit his biography although IIRC it was written pre-digital.
 
jerry12953 said:
Although, if the samples you posted elsewhere are typical, I suspect the main difficulty would have been how to get that damned great tripod and huge plate camera into any position which showed the subject matter...
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Didnt stop Jacob Riise or Lewis Hine, waking people with flash powder to light the scene. Adams used a lot of cameras, not necessarily his huge plate cameras for his commercial work

Adams said in an interview:

"Well, people have asked me what kind of cameras I used. It's hard to remember all of them. Oh I had a box Brownie #1 in 1915, 16. I had the Pocket Kodak, and a 4 x 5 view, all batted down. I had a Zeiss Milliflex. A great number of different cameras. I want to try to get back to 35 millimeter, which I did a lot of in the 1930s. Using one of the Zeiss compacts. In the 20s and into the 30s, I would carry a 6-1/2 x 8-1/2 glass plate camera -- that was a little heavy. And I had a 4 x 5 camera, then of course we went to film, to film pack, things became a little simpler.


"But William Henry Jackson and [Carleton] Watkins were all over this country with much bigger cameras. Wet plate cameras. And I believe it was Jackson's series of pictures on the top of Mt. Hoffman, with wet plates, that is, having to take the darkroom, cook the plates on the spot, expose and process them immediately. For the wet plate process you have to complete the development of the image before the emulsion dries. And when the dry plate came in it was a great godsend. I guess we all did the best as we could. If we had very heavy cameras we simply didn't go so far or take so many pictures. Knowing what I know now, any photographer worth his salt could make some beautiful things with pinhole cameras."
 
jerry12953 said:
I can't believe he would have made composites though......
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There's been a school of thought that he kept some cloud images to add to boring skies because thats what was expected. There was plenty of compositing around at the time or before, Frank Hurley for example.
jerry12953 said:
I'm sure he would have done. But to what extent would his processing have gone down the manipulation route, I'm wondering........
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I think he'd have made full use of any technique and software to produce the images that he wanted. It's the images that inspire, live on, not the process.
 
I'm sure he would do whatever was needed to get the images he wanted. Bearing in mind the limitations of digital sensors regarding tonal range I suspect he'd have worked in both film and digital for quite a long time, using both side by side until he felt digital could take over.

Something that can be easy to forget is that it's not about the technology, but about the picture you hang on the wall, put in an album or your client (if you have them) publishes. I'm sure he'd just see digital imaging as another tool to be used as most appropriate.
 
p.s. sorry a little unfair but I did a lot of research into Adams and his work before our Californian holiday, planning to revisit locations, thinking just Yosemite, but it turned into much more
 
Found the quote I was loooking for:
I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them.”— Ansel Adams, The Negative

pdf copy here if anyone fancies a read
https://manualesdecine.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/the-negative-ansel-adams-series-no-2.pdf

“I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop.”— Ansel Adams, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs
 
I'm a BIG fan of Adams and have all 3 books. Used to follow the religiosly in my darkroom days..... Thank gos they are now over and everything is digital where we 'develop' an image in the comfort of our office/desk.
 
Byker28i said:
There's been a school of thought that he kept some cloud images to add to boring skies because thats what was expected. There was plenty of compositing around at the time or before, Frank Hurley for example.

I think he'd have made full use of any technique and software to produce the images that he wanted. It's the images that inspire, live on, not the process.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm aware of Frank Hurley. What he did was quite an achievement given the techniques that were available. Not that I approve, mind you.........

I'd like to think that Adams was pretty ethical in that respect.
 
It's not just the process though, what would he have shot?

It's impossible to unravel history, if those images hadn't been shot 'back then' shooting them now isn't the automatic alternative. In fact, would the national parks even exist?

I thought it was obvious he'd be shooting digital and working with technology, but the other questions are more interesting.
 
Phil V said:
I thought it was obvious he'd be shooting digital and working with technology, but the other questions are more interesting.
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Is it obvious he'd be shooting digital, if he wanted to enlarge to the size and quality he is famous for he'd probably still shoot sheet film probably looking toward MF digital soon.

Though as you say, the second question is far more interesting and I don't know.
 
steveo_mcg said:
Is it obvious he'd be shooting digital, if he wanted to enlarge to the size and quality he is famous for he'd probably still shoot sheet film probably looking toward MF digital soon.

Though as you say, the second question is far more interesting and I don't know.
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I've been familiar with this quote for as long as I've been shooting digital, so yes I'm confidant he'd be shooting digital.

Byker28i said:
...

“I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop.”— Ansel Adams, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs
Click to expand...
 
Phil V said:
I've been familiar with this quote for as long as I've been shooting digital, so yes I'm confidant he'd be shooting digital.
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I don't see anything in that quote which endorses digital over film or vice a versa. He'd probably shoot digital yes, like he shot 35mm and with his 'blad but what he's really famous for is his prints often, but not always, enlarged to a great degree which would still be beyond 35mm digital to the quality which a perfectionist would be happy with.
 
steveo_mcg said:
I don't see anything in that quote which endorses digital over film or vice a versa. He'd probably shoot digital yes, like he shot 35mm and with his 'blad but what he's really famous for is his prints often, but not always, enlarged to a great degree which would still be beyond 35mm digital to the quality which a perfectionist would be happy with.
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I suspect he would be using medium format digital such as 'blad or phase 1 ...
 
Not a fan of his work but I think he was, both at the taking stage and in the darkroom.
 
When you think about it, even using flash or reflectors or anything other than just a plain camera (digital or film) is manipulating the outcome of the image. I guess you cant really get away from it. Even shooting straight JPEG is letting the camera do the manipulation or shooting in one of the auto modes or taking film photographs and sending them off to some lab to process (or do it yourself) will be manipulating the image to a degree.

I think, as long as the picture-taker is happy with the image, then thats all good and thats all that matters at the end of the day.

Mr Adams (whose work I do admire, for historical reasons) would have shopped the hell out of his images and would have been great at doing it too.
 
ST4 said:
One exp for sky, one for land. Why not?
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Not what I'd class as a composite ;) to me that is blending exposures (yes I know it is using more than one image - but in my interpretation they are taken at or about the same time of the same scene). I class composites as taking the background form one place and superimposing the subject(s) on it ...
 
steveo_mcg said:
I don't see anything in that quote which endorses digital over film or vice a versa. He'd probably shoot digital yes, like he shot 35mm and with his 'blad but what he's really famous for is his prints often, but not always, enlarged to a great degree which would still be beyond 35mm digital to the quality which a perfectionist would be happy with.
Click to expand...
But not beyond the quality of 'digital'. :D

No one else mentioned format size. It's clear from the quote he was looking forward to the challenges and opportunities that the new technology would bring.
 
jerry12953 said:
Yes, I'm aware of Frank Hurley. What he did was quite an achievement given the techniques that were available. Not that I approve, mind you.........

I'd like to think that Adams was pretty ethical in that respect.
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Well, it didn't take me long to find support for my own position here......

From his biography "Ansel Adams and the American wilderness" (Jonathan Spaulding)

Spaulding describes Adams creating a multiple exposure in camera for Kodak and then says -

"This type of double exposure, though carefully planned and flawlessly executed, was not the sort of thing he considered artistically legitimate as it was a manufactured image. For his personal work, Adams felt the found objects and arrangements of the world provided all the artistic possibilities he needed; camera-based "tricks" were not consistent with the Stieglitzian honesty he strived for. Adams regularly manipulated his photographs, however, via methods of exposure and development, lens selection, and view camera adjustments to produce prints markedly different from the priginal scene before the lens. This he considered a legitimate and necessary aspect of artistic interpretation" (p230)

I don't really consider those methods manipulation, although I find view camera adjustments slightly more problematical.
 
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