Ansel Adams Photo VisualizationPhoto visualization helped change Ansel's career from music to photography.Wikipedia defines Photo Visualization in Ansel's Zone System this way: We have included a video interview with Ansel Adams' son which offers first hand insights into Ansel's dramatic photo manipulations. (The video is located beneath the before and after photographs of Pool in Pleasure Park, Mansanar Relocation Center, California.)
In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice. (Ansel Adams) Compare Ansel's top enhanced photograph with his original photo on the left above. How did his photo visualization of the scene affect his actual photography? What did he do to enhance the photograph, and why? How can we apply Adams' creative expertise to today's technology? This page will explore those questions. In preparation we suggest you watch the intriguing video interview below in Yosemite (at Ansel's favorite photographic location) with his son, Michael Adams.
The Marc Silber Show with Ansel Adams' son Michael from SilberStudios.Tv on Vimeo. The quote below by Ansel Adams is, to my mind, very thought provoking. Especially in this computer generation, photographs can easily be made to lie. "..what is before the lens always has the illusion of reality; but what is selected and put before the lens can be as false as any totalitarian lie." (Ansel Adams, 1962 letter to Dorothea Lange, quoted in Ansel Adams, An Autobiography. With Mary Street Alinder. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985, p. 269.) Certainly, we have an ethical responsibility as photographers to use our art in a responsible manner. Yet photography art differs in my mind from journalistic photography. The one expresses realism (but is never totally realistic because the eye sees differently than the camera), while the other is creative and reflects emotions of beauty, pain, mystery and more. Ansel identified that issue when he said, "We all move on the fringes of eternity and are sometimes granted vistas through the fabric of illusion. Many refuse to admit it: I feel a mystery exists. There are certain times, when, as on the whisper of the wind, there comes a clear and quiet realization that there is indeed a presence in the world, a nonhuman entity that is not necessarily inhuman." Photo visualization was one facet of Ansel's creative genius. His Zone System grew from his photo visualization. Follow this link for Ansel Adam's Biography. Ansel Adams Predicts Digital Photography!Wikipedia explains Adams' projection of the future of his Zone System: 'The Zone System has often been thought to apply only to certain materials, such as black-and-white sheet film and black-and-white photographic prints. Adams (1981, xii) suggested that when new materials become available, the Zone System is adapted rather than discarded. He anticipated the digital age, stating,"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." Yet another misconception is that the Zone System emphasizes technique at the expense of creativity. Some practitioners have treated the Zone System as if it were an end in itself, but Adams made it clear that the Zone System was an enabling technique rather than the ultimate objective.'
My Opinion Given. Your Opinion Solicited!Has the video and/or this discussion encouraged you to make any alterations to your pursuit of artistic photography? Are you a photographic 'purist'? In other words do you print your photos as they come from the camera? Or, do you enhance them in Photoshop, the darkroom of the 21st Century? Were you surprised to learn that Ansel Adams burned and dodged his photographs to obtain their enduring, mystical quality? I was! I find it gratifying to know that the master photographer used his lab to create more artistic photos. His son's report of Ansel's photo visualization and resulting enhancements somehow helps me feel more validated as a graphic artist. I love using Photoshop tools to burn, dodge, crop, filter and otherwise enhance our photos artistically. But you may have a different opinion, and we encourage your comments! Your comments and opinions are invited and will help each of us to focus our photographic arena and determine our priorities.
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