What did Ansel Adams actually do?

[Ben Egbert]

We always use Adams as a sort of test. If he did it, we are allowed to do it too. IE, enhance or manipulate the raw image to taste. So I always ask myself what he actually did?

We know for sure he dodged and burned. Today we still have this option as well as blended images, HDR and a multitude of Photoshop tools and plug-ins to enhance dynamic range.

The term unsharp mask comes from a darkroom technique that I am sure Adams was familiar with and used.

We know he had access to films and papers and chemistry that could adjust contrast to taste.

So after the shoot, Adams could enhance DR, contrast and sharpness for sure. He could also crop.

I suppose he could have made composite images using more than one original. But I am not aware that he ever did this or even needed to.

Adams did not do much color and as far as I know he used chromes when he did. One thing he disliked about color films was the lack of control during processing. But of course we have this ability in spades, and we could assume Adams would embrace it.

But I always go back to his images and his very careful capture methods. He was meticulous. His images always look razor sharp, perfectly exposed and that cropping was seldom required. After all, he had a multitude of lenses, cameras and bellows he could adjust to get the perfect framing and focus on the scene. One doubts he gave up much of the original for crop.

His images never look as if they were manipulated to be anything other than a perfect black and white representation of what he saw on scene when viewing the ground glass with a loupe. I suspect most of his effort was aimed at teasing out the maximum dynamic range between pure black and pure white with contrast being next in importance. I suspect USM was only required to compensate for the minor looses to his equipment and not to correct focus errors.

I take this as my personal guide. Do it right when you take it. Fix the shortcoming inherent to the technology IE. AA filter blur, dynamic range and color accuracy. Add as much color and saturation and contrast as you feel is required to get the emotional contact. Crop if you must, but strive to learn how to compose on scene.

If I need to do something in post process to correct an error I could have avoided on the scene, I feel like I have a 2nd class image.

That’s my 2 cents.

 

[JimFox]

What we find is that the purists aren't really all that pure, though they say that they are. There will be some today who hold to this purist view of no manipulation at all, but they forget that manipulating photographs has gone one for as long as people have been shooting film/slides etc.

Dodging
Burning
Masking

All are very powerful to change the look of a photo from what was originally shot.

The process that a negative or print is processed in. Changing the makeup of the solutions, the timing of the solutions all make for a different look then what was shot.

So yeah, Ansel was incredible, and his photos never looked manipulated. But if anyone has ever taken the tour at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite at one point they do show you a raw print from a negative compared to Ansels final work on a print. And the difference was very dramatic.

So yeah, we shouldn't get too hung up on the process, unless a process consistently delivers results that don't look natural. My desire is to get the result to look as natural as possible.

But then again, there are those who don't care about the results looking natural, they just want to make an impact. Are they wrong for that? I guess not really?

 

[Kyle Jones]

I feel like I have a very engineering-based approach to how I shoot in the field. My goal in the field is to capture the best data that I can on my card so I can go home and use that data to produce what I had envisioned. This includes exposure choices (ETTR) that I may not make if I was trying to "get it right in camera". So from that standpoint, it doesn't really matter to me what someone using a different technology did in the darkroom.

 

[Ben Egbert]

What we find is that the purists aren't really all that pure, though they say that they are. There will be some today who hold to this purist view of no manipulation at all, but they forget that manipulating photographs has gone one for as long as people have been shooting film/slides etc.

Dodging
Burning
Masking

All are very powerful to change the look of a photo from what was originally shot.

The process that a negative or print is processed in. Changing the makeup of the solutions, the timing of the solutions all make for a different look then what was shot.

So yeah, Ansel was incredible, and his photos never looked manipulated. But if anyone has ever taken the tour at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite at one point they do show you a raw print from a negative compared to Ansels final work on a print. And the difference was very dramatic.

So yeah, we shouldn't get too hung up on the process, unless a process consistently delivers results that don't look natural. My desire is to get the result to look as natural as possible.

But then again, there are those who don't care about the results looking natural, they just want to make an impact. Are they wrong for that? I guess not really?

I hope this is about how my write off came off as it pretty much summarizes my purpose in writing it.

 

[AlanLichty]

My epiphanies came about from a different source but the conclusions were the same. My parents subscribed to Arizona Highways back in the 50's and I grew up worshiping the color photography work of Joseph Muench and was always under the impression that what I was seeing came directly from his cameras. Needless to say I was frequently disappointed whenever I got my slides back and nothing looked like the magazine pages.

I was one of the "purists" who was convinced that I should be doing next to nothing to taint the pure image when I first started scanning my slides and bought a copy of Photoshop (in 2000). I didn't have a digital camera at that time.

Then I ran into an article in a photo magazine that had an interview with David Muench (Joseph's son) describing his own feelings about Photoshop. Greatest thing since sliced bread in his mind because he could do things with it that used to take his father weeks in the darkroom when David was his helper! My walls around being a "purist" came tumbling down pretty quickly after that and I started looking more closely at what I was really wanting to get out of a scene I had shot.

I am still a stickler for figuring out the comp and the exposure right the first time in the camera. I don't bracket my images at all and almost everything I shoot is a single image. I only rarely use any automatic settings on my camera including focus.

 

[Ben Egbert]

My epiphanies came about from a different source but the conclusions were the same. My parents subscribed to Arizona Highways back in the 50's and I grew up worshiping the color photography work of Joseph Muench and was always under the impression that what I was seeing came directly from his cameras. Needless to say I was frequently disappointed whenever I got my slides back and nothing looked like the magazine pages.

I was one of the "purists" who was convinced that I should be doing next to nothing to taint the pure image when I first started scanning my slides and bought a copy of Photoshop (in 2000). I didn't have a digital camera at that time.

Then I ran into an article in a photo magazine that had an interview with David Muench (Joseph's son) describing his own feelings about Photoshop. Greatest thing since sliced bread in his mind because he could do things with it that used to take his father weeks in the darkroom when David was his helper! My walls around being a "purist" came tumbling down pretty quickly after that and I started looking more closely at what I was really wanting to get out of a scene I had shot.

I am still a stickler for figuring out the comp and the exposure right the first time in the camera. I don't bracket my images at all and almost everything I shoot is a single image. I only rarely use any automatic settings on my camera including focus.

I actually wrote this for my now defunct web site a few years ago, the things I do differently now compared to then is less blending and more cropping and multi image panos. The reason I crop more is mostly to allow a level camera which means more top or bottom cropping to avoid centered compositions after I gave up TSE.

 

[JimFox]

I hope this is about how my write off came off as it pretty much summarizes my purpose in writing it.

Yep, that’s what I got from your writing Ben.

 

[Jeffrey]

This topic of discussion is a big one, and it takes up gobs of bandwidth wherever it is discussed on any photo website. My nutshell response here is:

1) What is the definition of a purist? Why would someone care if they are following the 'purist' lifestyle of photography? Is that good? Better than any other way? (good luck answering these rhetorical questions).

2) I'm more interested in the definition of 'Tool'. "A device and/or method that one would use to assist in one's accomplishment of a task". Chemicals, electronics, masking tape, hell, I don't give a shit what tools you use. The final image needs to speak for itself. All tools are off the table at that point. Ansel put his prints in a microwave oven when he finally got one. He liked the result, too.

3) Cropping. Cropping is your most powerful compositional tool. Period. So much silly talk about cropping 'in camera'. I've never seen a camera that let me crop in camera. Many don't look at it that way. But it is true. You learn these types of things by studying photography, taking courses, and mentoring and living with those masters (or instructors) that inspire you and teach well. You learn the relationship between cropping and the human brain. Yes, there is one. I did all that. And a lot of people don't like to crop at all. Maybe they are emotionally attached to every pixel they have and think that many of them will cry out loud on the way to the trash.

4) Many people think that if you buy a digicam that cost over a thousand dollars and someone tells you that you have a good 'eye', then your able to produce great images. Ha! Oh, but I must be good because my mother likes my pictures.

5) Yeah, my studies were often based on Ansel's work, books, and philosophy. Because they are good. But it wasn't always him. Many others are worthy of their influence. Not all of them spoke to me creatively, but still had something to contribute to my overall take.

6) I don't like the word 'manipulate'. I don't remember when Photoshop became a verb. That was a sad day. And I don't 'take shots'. I create photographs as images.

7) Thank you for putting up with me so far!

 

[Jameel Hyder]

This topic brings the varied set of opinions and has been discussed at length. To me it simply comes down to this (digital bias here but can be equally argued for film/chemical world as well).

The camera captures data and based on some set of preferences (contrast, sharpening, white balance, ...) crunches the data to produce an image. The same data (RAW) can be brought into the computer and a different set of preferences (much more latitude) is applied to crunch the data to produce an image. The extra latitude available here is cropping, color balance, some artistic touches such as cloning out some minor things that distract from the image.

Why is one preferred over the other. Neither can be termed "pure" and so the purist argument is weak at best.

Different rules apply where the purpose is journalistic.

 

[Kyle Jones]

This topic brings the varied set of opinions and has been discussed at length. To me it simply comes down to this (digital bias here but can be equally argued for film/chemical world as well).

The camera captures data and based on some set of preferences (contrast, sharpening, white balance, ...) crunches the data to produce an image. The same data (RAW) can be brought into the computer and a different set of preferences (much more latitude) is applied to crunch the data to produce an image. The extra latitude available here is cropping, color balance, some artistic touches such as cloning out some minor things that distract from the image.

Why is one preferred over the other. Neither can be termed "pure" and so the purist argument is weak at best.

Different rules apply where the purpose is journalistic.

Very consistent with my thoughts. Nicely written.