Ansel Adams, Christopher James and Making Photographs

Mark:

 

You did not understand what I said. Where did I say 'full blacks and whites'?

 

I said:

 

'Talking to zonites is like talking to klansmen. All they talk about is 'blacks' and 'whites'.'

 

Can you understand irony and sarcasm?

It may be that some people proclaim "Not all photographers embrace the technical elements of the craft" with an implication that there is a specific way things should look. I'm not one of them. In fact, my original statement was intended to acknowledge the validity of both technical and non-technical approaches and the freedom to choose.

 

The photo technician whose joy is the technique itself is unfounded in criticizing those who follow a non-technical approach. Likewise, it is unnecessary to for those following an intuitive path to scorn those who do not. Finding one's way is a necessarily personal endeavor that usually combines many different elements from many different sources. Claiming to know what is best for another person is the height of arrogance. Illuminating possible choices is not.

 

Few of us will ever rise to the rank of photo artist in the eyes of history. At best, we will master the craft to one degree or another and maybe produce some good work. Some will even pay the rent using those skills even if the work is commercial. Sensational and snobby disdain for the work of others is a weak lever especially in this public forum. There is a vast amount of talent, experience, intelligence, and creativity represented by the people who post here. It is rich with a diversity of opinion. Expressing those differences without respect or consideration dims the light for everyone.

The Zone System is just system that allows the photographer a method to approximate a visual translation of the film's sensitometric curve to the photographic paper's sensitometric curve. Nothing more than that.

 

People who want it to be more than that and make it into a holy grail process are missing the entire point - it's just another tool to get the end result you want. Really, that's all it was for Ansel - a tool.

 

Why make it anything more than that? Ansel had his style of photography which required the best controls he could apply to achieve the final result. He was nice enough to share his thoughts with anyone who wanted to know HOW he achieved his end results. If the Zone System really bothers you - don't read his book. In fact, don't read any photo books.

 

If you feel the Zone System is constraining - then ignore it. Weston didn't use a meter and just gave the film the exposure and development he felt were correct for his vision of the final print - looks to me like that approach worked okay for him. If you don't want to use a light meter that's okay too. Sunny 16 yourself to the end result you want.

 

But, why all the rancor and bitterness directed at Adams? I don't get it ... he never said his way was the only way - just that it was A way that could be used by anyone to achieve a good technical result. It is merely an aid for the photographer who chooses to use it to achieve a certain level of technical proficiency - that's it. YOU SUPPLY THE CREATIVITY.

 

I was classically trained by people who were of the photoscience vein - Stroebel, Zakia, Todd, Shoemaker, etc. They were equally adamant that you had to know how to totally control the process before you could make quality photographs.

 

In someways their approach was equally as constraining as you spent hours with densitometers measuring, plotting, calculating, etc.

 

I've seen the totally opposite approach at the University of New Mexico where little if any technique and craftsmanship are taught so students waste an inordinate amount of time "discovering" how photography works through innumerable easily avoided mistakes. I would find that EQUALLY as constraining and far more frustrating.

 

And then, there are people like Joel Witkin who just makes it up as he goes along ....

 

It's just photography. It has no rules. The only thing you do is spend time and money. Use them however you want.

yeah................lot's of money............lot's and lot's of money..........and i'm just referring to my film and chemical bill.

 

beats knocking a ball around a bunch of holes though ;o)

Living in Yosemite Valley year-round, I visit the Ansel Adams Gallery every week for one reason or another. One thing that I have found is that a lot of the photographs taken by Ansel were made "better" in the darkroom. (Sort of "the nature of the beast" at that time with photographic equipment & film") What I concentrate on, when viewing his - and others - photographs, is the perspective and WHY he chose a particular spot to take the photo from. He DID spend a LOT of time taking each photograph, generally, and we can learn from that. Why wait for the lighting to be just right? ; why take the photo from THAT angle? ; what does the photo that you see through the lens tell you that makes you want to take THAT particular shot?

 

Another good book that explores the WHY of taking particular shots is Galen Rowell's "The Inner Game of Outdoor Photography".

The Zone System is a good discipline, like practising scales and arpeggios on the piano. But in its most exact form it is only really applicable to landscape and still-life photography. But in the final analysis there is more to a really outstanding photograph than the precision of its tonal rendering.

Well, I read "The Negative" at least twice, got myself a spot meter and must confess the zone system didn't become a part of my life. It should, when I start using my LF gear for landscapes or similar, but at the moment I'm just machineguning a pair of dwarf-hamsters with a DSLR.

As I understood the ZS is just intended to be a way to get a easy printable neg without being very experienced, darkroom wizard or oldschool drumscanner-operator.

I haven't found out yet which way to get pictures is the right one, but I did already discover that burning lots of 35mm film with two motordriven bodys blocks my motivation at the darkroom. I don't know where to start and am unable to get a overview. So I believe in at least MF and a bit of ZS being a way to find peace with myself, when I come home from a vacation or similar.

ZS makes a lot of sense if you try to print every neg on grade 2 paper and want a full scale of tonal values on your print. With the greater exposure latitude of modern negative materials and multigrade paper there is a big chance to get quite acceptable results from most negs using average exposure and average development; the rest can be done with dodging and burning most of the time. But understanding the idea behind ZS still helps getting good pictures. Sometimes I'm using a spot meter to identify the darkest and brightest areas of the scene to find out if all values are still within the contrast range of the film I use, trying to get shadow detail without burning out the lights, and I know that I have to increase development time with low contrast subjects - this is far from working with ZS, but it's the same idea, in a way. Just don't make a religion of it.

In dealing with Ansel Adams' theories on photography I find it helpful to know that he was first and foremost a commercial photographer. Adams' didn't make much money from his landscape prints until late in life. He spent most of his time working long hours as a commercial photographer doing advertising work. I wish more would be written about this. His zone system makes even better sense in that context. It is all about making the perfect exposure and the perfect print in a predetermined manner.

There's a photo class in my area called something like Taking the Myth Out of the Zone System.

 

That's a pretty good in-a-nutshell view of the Zone System. It's a helpful guide to exposure. Since we all see in color, it's good aid to visualizing the tones of gray in a B&W photo.

 

The problem is that Ansel was such a damn pefectionist that people have taken the Zone System all out of proportion. It's a exposure aid, not a scientific discipline along the lines of physics.

 

Look at the introduction to Adams' "The Camera". You'll see his philosophy right there: "photography extends the opportunity to make art to everyone -- i.e. anyone can learn to use a camera. It's good to take a thoughtful approach to photography -- i.e. don't just shoot pictures indiscriminately. But creativity is essential."

 

In other words, think about what you're doing, but don't think so hard that you stifle your creativity.

sorry, the above wasn't a direct quote -- just a paraphrase. sorry for any confusion.

Hi,

 

It's all about knowing your film lattitude and using your meter.

 

If you want more detail in highlights you will have to expose them less, they will become more grey and if the scene lighting doesn't allow the shadow detail to be recorded at this exposure - well you're out of zone! Prioritise.

 

This is why Adams loved B&W photography - film lattitude.

The art of his photographs is in the equipment he used and the patience to wait for the right lighting to fit the whole zone inside the film lattitude, or that part that he wanted.

 

The zone worked for him in a time when light meters were alien things and Joe Public did't have a clue how to make proper exposures

 

Adams did a lot more for photography than the Zone system and should be remembered for the whole.

 

With todays lightmeters and cameras everyone can use their own common sense to create correctly exposed photographs.

 

Somehow I think that following someone else's thinking is just taking the fun out of creating your own photographs.

 

Regards

Actually going out and metering everything at that level is something I couldn't

imagine. However just knowing that it's possible to be that much of a perfectionist is

inspiration enough.

 

Even though I don't "do it", even in a loose sense, it provides a framework for

thinking about light levels. I use it as a tool for LOOKING at images, and thinking

about photographs. You don't have to "do zone" to benefit from knowing what its

about.

 

Read it, learn it, take from it what you have use for.

 

Ian

 

(and to paraphrase - you don't "rate" Adams - his stuff is brilliant, you're free to not

like it, or not get it, but that doesn't mean he wasn't unbelievably talented).

Zone is always in the back of my mind. If I spend a half an hour in the freezing cold looking at a square of ground glass I want to make sure the shot I get looks how I want it to look. This doesn't mean the shot will be successful, it may suck, but I'll be damned if it isn't exposed how I want it to be.

 

Zone is a tool just like everything else in photography. If you can't use it properly, than don't. I recomend discounting, entirely, almost all of Hans's opinions. If you are a 35mm photographer, Zone is probably one of those things that you look at and say, "Why bother?" If you shoot 8x10, than you are probably not winging it, or bracketing your shots.

 

Unfortunatly, the advent of Digital Cameras has increased the signal-to-noise ratio in photography astronomically. I see Photoshop in much the same way that math teachers see calculators. You shouldn't use them until you already know how to do it by hand. Do not discount Zone, it is a tool, use it as one. The tool is not the craft. Craft is craft. I know a few people who can shoot and use natural light fanstastically, but make them control the light and they botch it up amazingly. I was at a critique yesterday where some people could not seem to grasp the concept of selective focus and using depth of field to your advantage. Zone is a TOOL, and understanding it will inevetably improve your photography even if you don't use it.

ian Stephenson , feb 21, 2004; 08:06 p.m.

<i>...(and to paraphrase - you don't "rate" Adams - his stuff is brilliant, you're free to not like it, or not get it, but that doesn't mean he wasn't unbelievably talented).</i><p>

 

If you have seen one Adams print, you haven't seen them all..If you have seen two, you have seen them all.......

Hans: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/f?ils:0:./temp/~pp_LL6u:

Most of the time my method adheres to the Ansel Adams Zone system,

maybe that is because having been a still life photographer for a very long

time I am accustomed to "making" a photo versus "taking" a photo.

 

I'll see a scene, something that strikes a cord with me, and I'll manipulate it in

my head and then shoot it with that outcome in mind. I'll filter and expose for it

to produce the scene I visualized. I will think of what dodging and burning

might be needed when i print. This is the procedure for me maybe 80 percent

of the time. The other 20 percent of the time, I'll shoot it anyway and live with

the negative for a while before I determine the direction to take it. Few of my

images look anything like the original scene.

 

I have done my standardization of film and development so I know that when I

want to achieve a certain tonal value in the end result, I can.

 

I disagree with AG Laycock that Ansel was a dictator, he merely suggested a

method. You have to understand AA's background, he was trained as a

pianist. That sort of training requires strict practice and repetition in order to

master the method of playing a piano to level in which it becomes intuitive to

play. I believe the same holds true for photography. But once you have the

ability to play (shoot) whatever you want, you are then free to do whatever you

want, technique is no longer a limiting factor. I think many young

photographers are limited in what they can create because they lack the

technical ability to physically produce it, I also think they are limited in their

work because they lack the knowledge of what is possible. Previsualization is

not some method that AA came up with. For most of the history of art, painters

and sculptors previsualized what they were going to create, and created it. It's

only in the era of abstract work that artists started doing work in a more

random manner, although many abstract pieces are carefully planned.

Photography is the easiest genre in which to have "happy accidents". And is

also the medium most likely where careful crafting of an image might lead you

to criticism from other practitioners.

 

In my experience the photographers who do not seem to value mastering the

craft or technical aspects of photography seem most often, and i do not refer

to any of those posting here, to be the one's who denigrate work that is

technically masterful. I often wonder if this is a reaction on their part to their

inability, real or perceived, to produce work of technical competence. There

seems to be a consistent comment that because work may be impeccably

done, it loses emotion or merit. As though a poorly crafted photo taken with a

Holga inherently has more emotional value than one taken with an 8x10 view.

 

www.kosoff.com

After my posting of a faulty link and re-reading this forum and its postings, I decided to FIRST reread the original statement, then started to read "Ansel Adams and the American Landscape" for a bit of perspective. In response to the original posting; yes, I do plan my exposures, not only because I am blessed with Southwest light, but also because of habits acquired, namely that I don't like to waste film, and because I know what I want in my exposure. It certainly is possible to pre-plan images, and even though I'm in color 90% of the time, some implied understanding of zoning is needed anyway to get a decent image, automatic camera or not. In the remarks above I detect an acceptance of the zone system and a rejection of it as well, more than likely based on the inability to come to grips with it. Because of his inate understanding of light and film, Ansel Adams has left behind a huge number of images of very high quality outside of those commonly seen in galleries or framing shops. This is why I referred to his images which one can see online at the Library of Congress. I hope that perhaps another party can pick up this forum string and have some kind of continuance on it..certainly for photographic novices, the information supplied by Adams and the quality of his images are good examples of "how to"

In my view,it's about communicating the photographer's emotions or feelings about a scene or subject and how successful that communication is...Jim