What would Ansel think about the digital revolution?

Premise: Snap your fingers. Bring Ansel Adams back alive just 20

years later. In his lifetime he was a proponent of innovation, but,

by today's technical advancements in photography, he would be WAY

behind the curve (as I often feel I am).

 

What would he think about digital cameras? Ink jet printers? The

extreme manipulation of images and the trend toward graphic design?

All the software available? So, how would a middle-aged Ansel

function today? Would he be the guru in digital that he is for the

traditional?

My guess: he would be a guru in digital, embracing new technologies, being a leading innovator in their use, and developing new techniques. He would probably re-write his books on the camera, negative and print to reflect the techniques he adopted with digital technology. But he would still be working with 'straight' photographs. He wouldn't be especially concerned about 'extreme manipulation' of images - after all he knew what could be done in a traditional darkroom - but no doubt he would have a view on it and we would be in no doubt what it was - like his views on the pictorialists, or of sharp pictures of fuzzy concepts.

I was lucky enough to attend a workshop with Adams. He was a nightmare as an instructor or educator, but wonderfully open as a human being and intellectually both curious and agile.

 

If you snapped your fingers and brought him back now, he would of course be "behind the curve" - he would, after all, have missed those decades of technological development and cultural process. On the other hand, I have no doubt that he would catch up on that within a week or so ... and then he would be way, way ahead of most practitioners today (myself certainly included). His understanding and perception of visual craft and technical process was transferable, not time dependent.

 

Felix

Ansel Adams wouldn't be behind the curve in his photographs, which are good indeed, though I don't care for them that much.

 

As for guru, I don't think he'd be one of those 'gurus' who are always chasing the latest and most expensive digital equipment - several names spring to mind, all talking about which digital camera to get, but not about the digital medium itself. And Adams talked light/medium/printing, so he wouldn't be in demand by all the popular magazines on the newsstand.

 

I'd be more interested to hear what he made of Andreas Gursky, Stephen Shore and others.

<p>(Direct from the introduction section, written in 1981 by Ansel

Adams, of the 11th paperback printing of <i>The Negative</i>:)

<p>"I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that 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 would use whatever allows him to get the best prints, and would take the time to learn to control his tools as perfectly as possible (therefore I don't necessarily see him changing cameras or printers very often). I can very much imagine him investigating the behavior of the highlights in low-ISO raw pictures out of a DSLR, and then spot-meter his scenes so that he would give his scenes exactly as much exposure as possible while precisely retaining exactly the level of highlight detail that he would need for the print that he had in mind. I wouldn't be surprised to see him work closely with people like Thomas Knoll in order to develop the best possible image-processing toolchain for his needs.

"Bring Ansel Adams back alive just 20 years later. In his lifetime he was a proponent of innovation, but, by today's technical advancements in photography, he would be WAY behind the curve (as I often feel I am)."

 

I'm not quite sure of the point of your post as reasonably anybody who was stuck in a windowless room for twenty years would suffer in a similar fashion. But realistically speaking, take any reasonably intelligent individual and drop them into pretty much any societal situation where language wasn't a consideration and within a short time frame of six months to two years, they'd expectedly have adapted.

 

If Mozart were transported in time to a Rock&Roll concert venue of today, how long do you think it would take for his music (entertainment) to adapt? If Shakespeare were transported to Steinbecks office, while "Grapes of Wrath" was being written, how long do you think it would take for Shakespeare to adapt his writings to reflect the American Dust Bowl, Depression Era unemployment and High NY life style (1930's B&W movies) as a successful Hollywood writer/producer. One might wonder that if Leland Stanford were placed into Trump's office today, (I'd like to see that one) how long do you think it would take before Stanford realized Trump needed to be given more training or be fired? :) And does anyone really think Clinton could hold Teddy Roosevelt's candle today? LOL

 

In indirect response to your question, my guess, the "Greats" are the Greats for good reason ("Cream always rises to the top.") and would easily adapt, in a positive fashion (making use of contemporary media,) no matter how many years had elasped since their passing.

 

That's my penny's worth:)

ansel adams SAW the image or what there was to be photgraphed.

he was the total opposite of the "snapshooter"

yes of course he understood how the film and developers reponded and took advantage of that.

it is not photography - pro or amateur- to shoot 500 images and later sort them out in the darkroom or the computer.

he could see and visualize the finished photograph. and knew what he wanted to portray. I think this is a skill/ability/ talent that is rare and shared by few.

think of the california coastlne photos, the twisted tree and the rocks.

it's unlikely, with a large format camera, that he had boxes and boxes of film to shoot, just a few sheets.

He would use a Mac; and want a watered down zones to name regions of the 0 to 255 values in photoshop; watering down the usefull info; folks would flock to the wimped down photoshop version CSW; and pay more for it :)

Hi,

 

I really don't think AA would be into digital. Traditional photography and digital

photography are really quite different sensibilities. You get tall people to play basketball.

Short people find something else to do, say wrestling. So it is with the digital revolution

and the darkroom, and a person with the sensibilitiy of Adams.

 

Of course, if he had lived through the digital revolution, he may have made efforts to stay

in the game--but that isn't how the question is put.

 

Tom

Its hard to say but I don't necessarily think he would be so quick to embrace it. He would probably dabble in it so he could include it in books and maybe sell more copies but his true passion would still be making traditional monochrome wet prints IMO. He never really embraced color photography even though the medium had long since taken hold by the time of his death. I know its hard to believe, but sometimes but you'll occasionally run into a person who actually enjoys making prints through traditional methods.

"He never really embraced color photography even though the medium had long since taken hold by the time of his death."

 

He didn't like it because he said he couldn't control it. Don't remember where I read that so I can't post a link to support the comment.

<i>it is not photography - pro or amateur- to shoot 500 images and later sort them out in the darkroom or the computer.</i><p>

 

Here we go again with people creating arbitrary definitions of "photography" to suit their own personal likes and dislikes. This is the antithesis of "philosophy," which is ostensibly what this forum is about. It's also the antithesis of what photography has been historically, which is ever evolving. There was a time when one photo was all that was taken for a portrait. Did anyone hold Avedon to that standard? Maybe DeGroot would, but the world of photography would have suffered if that had been the way...<p>

 

Regarding the original question, I'm not sure why it matters.

I took a moment to do a web search to see if I could come up with something a bit more concrete in regard to Ansel and color. Below is a link that should shed light on the question of Ansel and color.<p>

 

<a href="http://www.twbookmark.com/books/94/0821219804/chapter_excerpt13230.html">QUEST FOR COLOR By James L. Enyeart</a><p>

 

Enjoy the read:)<p>

"Regarding the original question, I'm not sure why it matters."

 

For you it doesn't, for other's, it does. Try turning the question around and take some time to understand why it would concern those who care about Adams' work.

 

Adams represents the epitome of the old school masters (technicians) and digital is a technical process. So it would be interesting, considering what a pivitol individual he was in regard to contemporary Modern photographic art, who died at the very cusp of the advent of digital photography, 1984. How Ansel would have responded to the changing media, which is still in flux today as to printers, papers, inks and the profiling process (zone system) is an interesting question worth fleshing out.

The guy is dead. What he thought about what he thought about may be worth reading, but there are plenty of people who understand what is now, and they are much more worth reading and thinking about.

He'd have a new line of books out, inlcuding, <I>The Sensor</I>.

"The guy is dead."

 

Ansel's death shouldn't stop anybody from thinking or talking publically about what they think he would have done. It's a reasonable question.

 

"What he thought about what he thought about may be worth reading, but there are plenty of people who understand what is now, and they are much more worth reading and thinking about."

 

Ahhhh, the real reason for your comment as this is both your opinion and bias.

My bias is that I will take what someone similar says today over what a bunch of internet weenies say a dead person would say. That's not too difficult to understand, nor is it in any way much of a bias. Thinking about what dead people might think is intellectual masturbation, reading what someone says is a lot more useful.

"took a moment to do a web search to see if I could come up with something a bit more concrete in regard to Ansel and color. Below is a link that should shed light on the question of Ansel and color.

QUEST FOR COLOR By James L. Enyeart"

 

Thomas, I jusy knew someone would make reference to this! lol I recently browsed through "Ansel Adams in Color" when I was at Barnes and Noble and was impressed with his photos. Your right, he did do some work using Kodachrome but it was very small in comparison to his black and white. As someone else mentioned, he didn't embrace color, the main reason being a lack of control over the process. My only point was that AA didn't necessarily embrace something because it was new and innovative as some here have suggested. Therefore I think it is at least questionable whether or not he would be a strong advocate of digital. I certainly don't have any statistics, but it seems to me that people who work predominantly in Black and White have converted to digital in smaller numbers compared to those who work predominantly in color. The main reason (I believe) is due to the enjoyment derived from the traditional process of creating a print and seing the fruits of your actual "labor." Whether Adams falls into this category is anyone's guess but being that he practically wrote the book on modern B+W photography and made a lasting contribution to the art, I would argue he does. In the end its fun to think about anyway.

"My bias is that I will take what someone similar says today over what a bunch of internet weenies say a dead person would say."

 

Sorry to read your above. Being closed minded to this sort of exploration/learning is a terrible thing because it prevents growth of a different kind. Conjecture or what could have been is a valid form of learning. You may not like it but it's used on a daily basis by instructors everywhere.

"As someone else mentioned, he didn't embrace color, the main reason being a lack of control over the process."

 

That was me right after your comment:)

 

"He didn't like it because he said he couldn't control it. Don't remember where I read that so I can't post a link to support the comment."

 

Maybe I'll take some time tomorrow to stop by Barnes and Nobel and check it out. I saw a color book of his in San Francisco last year but the images were very unimpressive and the colors were sadly very cluttered and uninspiring.

"My bias is that I will take what someone similar says today over what a bunch of internet weenies say a dead person would say."

 

Just curious Jeff, why are you even here as you yourself fall into the above category which you so thoughtfully described?

 

I suppose one needn't discuss the what, why or potential any of the past masters, in any discipline might engage themselves in today. I mean after all they're dead aren't they? Why bother studing someone such as Frank Lloyd Wright and discuss in a classroom what his designs might look like today considering today's manufacturing methods that are different then those of when he was alive? These are valid considerations in regard to an architectural learning disscussion.

 

What we really should ask, keeping in line with your closed minded thinking is, why preserve any of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings, they're just a bunch of dumb old building anyways and after all the guys dead, he won't know:)

 

Just curious.

<I>What would he think about digital cameras? Ink jet printers?ll the software available?

</I><P>He'd embrace them and ague with , as he did with manufacturers of

'conventional" photographic gear and media to improve their product. And let's not fail to

understand that there were a huge evolutionary changes in gear (yes even in large format

cameras and film) during the four or five decades that Adams was a practicing

photographer. Not a few of which he was responsible for. Not to mention the huge shifts

in the way photographs are thought of and looked at.<P><I>The extreme manipulation of

images and the trend toward graphic design?</I><P>You obviously don't realize that

Ansels was not adverse to doing what others of his generation thought were extreeme

manipulations" of his iamges to achive the efvisual effect he was striving for. As for "a

trend towards graphic design" Adams best images are extremely fine examples of the

applications of good graphic design. What is considered powerful and revolutionary

graphic design (or photography) in one era is considered old hat by the next. You are

asking from a position of ignorance (which is not the same thing as stupidity -- you have

the wits to question your own values - -a trait which is not shared by everyone engaged in

this thread: Some gardners need to learn how to plant new crops).<P><I>Ansel's death

shouldn't stop anybody from thinking or talking publically about what

they think he would have done. It's a reasonable question.</I><P> Only if you also like to

debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.<P> Ansel Adams declared in

writing that he looked forward to the possibilities of how digital image processing might

be applied to photography.<P>All of you people who regard Ansel as some kind of purist

just are not in touch withthe truth of Adam's career and philosophy. He was the #1 gear

head in photography, and chased lotsof improved technology dragons -- if for no other

reason then finding sponsors. (Cases in point; Kodak, Hasselblad and Polaroid.) Butthere

are other reasons: he clearly thought that a photograph was like music: the negative

being the score and the final print being the performance. And his willigness to change

how he printed the same negatives over a period of time to make prints that differed

greatly from one's he made earlier in hs life is a manifest of that inately creative approach

to photography. maybe he made these chahnges becasue he thought he could do a better

job of printing, maybe becasue he felt he had more control overthe process, maybe

becaasue they reflected a changed intellectual or emotional response to the subject

matter or the world at large. For whatever reason that he did this, he did it. This is a

fundamental difference between say painting and sculpture vs. photography: the ability to

reinterpret your work, to not only see quickly and execute the first step quickly (make the

exposure) but then to re-evaluate that snap decision and to not be fixed to only one way

of "saying" an idea. If you think I'm bonkers you obviously haven't seen , say, several

iterations of "Moonrise over Hernandez, New Mexico."<P>Digital photography & image

making gives everyone the ability to do this if they are willing to make the effort and the

invest in time sweat, frustration and thought to gain that liberty. <P>sorry for the typos. It

is late and I am tired.

"Ansel's death shouldn't stop anybody from thinking or talking publically about what they think he would have done. It's a reasonable question."

 

"Only if you also like to debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin."

 

Angels can dance?