What we can learn from Ansel Adams
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- Опубликовано: 2 июн 2024
- Ansel Adams is unquestionably one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century, and in many ways helped create the landscape photography genre. In this video, I share the backstory of my first encounter with his work (in the 1980s), my favorite images, plus a number of technical and creative lessons we can learn from.
Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs (Amazon)
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Standing Where Ansel Adams Stood (NY Times, Subscription)
www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/tr...
All images Copyright (C) Ansel Adams Gallery
Images included for educational purposes
📕 CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:33 His most influential photo
6:58 Tetons and Snake River
9:07 Breaking convention
15:00 Handling midday light
17:05 Depth and tonality
19:39 Shooting close to home
22:00 Photographing the sky
27:52 Yosemite Valley
28:51 Shooting low
31:32 Outro
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When you see pictures taken by Ansel Adams you can easily think it is a modern photographer because of the way he made compositions, used light and sky without all the technology he had in those days. Every time a think about Ansel Adams reilience and patience are two words that come to my mind, just imagine how much he needed to walk, wait and elaborate his compositions with all those old cameras.
I found the GPS coordinates where Adams captured Mt Williamson Clearing storm; it currently is a geocache site. A storm was moving in, and I named it Mt Williamson Building Storm when I caught the image. I gave a print to the Manzinar National Monument Curator at the visitor's center; it is now part of their permanent collection. Standing in the footsteps of giants. Nice narrative.
My first fascination with photography was when I was a kid. At a local restaurant the walls were full of Ansel Adams posters. They got me hooked.
Adams loved his red filters to darken the sky. If you see one of his prints in a museum look closely a the whites. They seem to glow from within. He definitely had the chemistry down to an art form. His prints are beautiful. If you ever want photographic inspiration go to a museum that has a few of his prints.
Adams was fortunate to live in a time before the hordes overwhelmed the great outdoors.
In my own work, the sky and clouds are the subject.
Thank you, great video and imtroduction in Adam's work! In 1986 I got his book: "Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs" and it's a revelation! Illustrating their origination, technique and compostion. High recommended!
In reading his auto biography, I found two key elements that really stick out to me -- one is expression (and by this he means, not just taking the photo as you see it, but does the photo show -- in some way or another -- your feelings at that moment, and I think Adams was big on this -- showing emotion and feelings in his photographs, not just a documentation). The other is probably more technical, but the zone system for exposure. It's helped me a lot in landscape photography when I sometimes can't trust the light meter or need to quickly assess a scene (landscape shjoot or not).
Well said! And yes, Adams often said that if he couldn't visualise a final image, he wouldn't photograph the scene. He was quite meticulous about considering a potential subject and overall composition in great detail before making the picture. Of course, he also said there were times when seconds mattered (because of fleeting light, etc.), where he had to act almost instinctively and trust there was something there worth photographing. But these moments were also born of the experience he'd accrued over decades. He was a true master, indeed. Cheers!
Two great books on Ansel Adams are, "Ansel Adams An Autobiography" and one that is very good is "Ansel Adams a biography" by Mary Street Alinder. Great reads if you are an Adams fan..
This might be the best photography video I've watched this year. Much appreciated from a fellow "old guy" - nice to see the deep appreciation for American classics like Ansel Adams in a day where retouching/editing photos to death just wasn't possible. Thanks for all the effort you put into this Todd.
Pete, look into Ansel’s book “The Making of 40 Photographs”. He details just what he did to reach his final image. There was an amazing amount of work starting with Zone System development of the film, and extensive exposure control and dodging and burning. He would have just loved the tools we have today.
@@jayabramson6702 Much appreciated Jay! I'll check it out.
I grew up in a house full of Ansel Adams prints. His work was certainly formative in inspiring my own black and white style as well as the kinds of things I am drawn to photograph. I dont think you can be exposed to his work without it leaving a mark on you.
Two people have changed the way of seeing the world around me - Christopher Alexander and Ansel Adams. They are my teachers. All of their books are with me always. Thank you for your beautiful video about one of these geniuses. God bless you, sir!
Nice video and perspectives. I was lucky to attend two Ansel Adams workshops in Yosemite in the mid 70’s. I’d add just a note on your comment about Adams lowering his camera for some of the tree photos. I think he probably used the view camera shift capability to reduce the foreground in these photos instead of lowering the camera. Thanks.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about some of Ansel Adams’ images. This remind me that any time I need some inspiration, I should pick up one of Ansel’s books and spend a few minutes browsing. I had the great fortune of attending the last photography workshop that he conducted in Yosemite in the 1970’s before he moved the workshop to Carmel. Frozen Lake and Cliffs is my favorite of all his images and I was able to buy a signed print shortly after I met him at the workshop. Since that time it has always been visible in a special place on my wall.
Todd- I loved this video. Thanks for talking through the book. I hope you do more of this type of videos 😊
The sad thing is growing up in L.A. in the 60’s and 70’s, being into photography and knowing who Ansel was I could have taken a workshop with him….. insert 1000 face palms here…….
And it was astronomers that would have assisted in dating “Moonrise”. Astrologers would have told him what house the moon was in😱
Hi Todd, I really appreciate your personal experience, thoughts, reflections on these images. I agree that this is one of the best videos on landscape photography in a long time ...
I’ve had this book for a few years now and really enjoyed your commentary on Adams’ images. As always, your videos are intelligent and insightful. Thank you!
This is excellent, thanks for posting! 📷😎👍
We are the same generation, beside that, Adams interests me more and more. Life taught me that we always return to our roots
So interesting thanks for the commentary! Always appreciate you!!
Sir, if you know anything about Ansel Adams you will know that he pre-visualised all of his images and the zone system was his way of achieving that visualisation.
What’s a great video! Thanks, Todd
Great Video Todd! Super cool to learn more about Adams, and I will probably pick this book up hahah. Been getting inspired lately to jump back into shooting photography for fun and enjoyment, without the overhead pressure of doing it for a client or for a job - this video is adding fuel to that! Excited for more breakdowns like this in the future!
You are the most interesting guy i ever listened to on RUclips. Its insane! I loved your Photography and editing tip videos the most, hope you keep it up. The quality of your videos, audio quality, etc. Is top notch. You gotta be proud of yourself🔥 trust me, i saw lots of channels, but you shine over all of them
I have enjoyed your channel for a long time, but must say this video is one of my favorites …perhaps because I too as a teenager got hooked out of the blue on an Ansel Adams B&W (the classic Mt Whitney shot from Lone Pine), and likely because I was fortunate to backpack several times a year in the eastern Sierra in my teens and early 20’s - so it was easy to relate to much of Adams’ work. To this day when I need to travel north from SoCal through the desert, I always leave hours before dawn, just so I can be on the road to see the sunrise as the light hits the granite peaks of the eastern slope. While the early morning pink hues are special, I always think of what I saw in my minds eye as B&W - because of Adams work. Thanks again for a helpful video that gave me some things to consider with my future compositions. I’m going to get my Ansel Adams books out for a long look - it’s been too long. Thanks again, and I look forward to your next video.
I watched with interest to see what you might say about "Frozen Lake and Cliffs, Kaweah Gap" (11:00) in case you had seen what it took me decades to notice. I've loved Adams's work as least as long as yourself, but just didn't "get" what he saw when he made that image. Most often, it's the light and how it plays on his subjects, other times it's textures and abstract geometry as he found them, but sometimes his own sense of fun lies behind: this is one such image. That tumble of stones on the melting snow and ice at left, above the really bright ice on the lake, looks like a man sat in a fairground car about to enter the Tunnel of Mystery opening in the cliff face right of centre: once you see it, you can't not see it.
Adams was responsible for my visiting Yosemite Valley in the 80s, has long been my favourite B&W photographer, but nothing can compare with seeing his original prints for yourself and some images just don't reproduce well enough to properly understand. I saw some in '83 but didn't get to see a goodish selection unil much later - the one I stood in fascination in front of (for a quarter of an hour) was, like you, "Mt Williamson from Manzanar" Fabulous!
LOVE your videos 📹🧡!!
Great analysis, I am a lucky owner of this book for many years.
according to his secretary he didn't shoot much during the midday, he just did dawn or dusk and was on his typewriter during the day writing down ideas and business issues and letters.
Great review and video Todd. Would you believe I just bought this book 3 weeks ago! Absolutely LOVE it and your explanations were very helpful indeed. I am sure you have seen actual prints of some of his images and they are just
extraordinary and so full of life. The quality of images in this book is actually quite good. Many thanks for sharing
I really loved it! It's was great to learn about his work, specially because have some similarities with my :)
Great Video Todd! Ansel Adams had a huge influence on my photography! my parents bought the Time Life photography series of books and his images feature in those, the image I remember was the New Mexico Moonrise and how he kept detail in such a range of tones but still had absolute whites and blacks! I tried to understand the zone system first with film and now days with digital! Imagine what images he would produce with a 100 MP digital camera today! My comment about his travel is we don't appreciate the lack of portability of his cameras and the need to access the Dark room! Thanks for sharing
Thanks for the video. I am a week away from my first photo trip to Switzerland. This reminds me to increase the ISO and shoot with greater depth of field. I am also taken by the aspect ratio of the images. Not my current format but very interesting.
Great video Todd. I have the book but don’t think I’ve looked at it with the depth you have. I need to do just that.
Thanks for the great lesson!
As to why he didn’t take more photos elsewhere might be because the gear was massive back then. If he traveled far he probably left his 8x10 equipment at home. He probably had to limit himself to 4x5 or smaller.
This video is more about you than anything else.
You mentioned the full light shooting. Ansel Adams was one of the founding members of the f64 club. That shot their sheet film at f64
Adams realized it was possible to record a greater range of scene contrast on a print than it was possible to see in person due to the way pupils contract to keep the brightest areas correctly exposed with detail at the expense of seeing details in the shadows. With B&W negative film it is possible to change the highlight - shadow density range with development and his “Zone System”, which I learned in 1971 from his Basic Photo books, was based on matching negative development time to scene range so all negatives would match the range needed for a full range #2 print.
His system was originally a bit complicated due to the primitive exposure tools available when he created it. Exposure was based off a reading of a Kodak 18% gray card or palm of hand with Weston meter and scene range in stops guessed visually based on previous experience in clear, cloudy, overcast, etc. conditions. I simplified it by using a Honeywell 1° spot meter which allowed direct measurement of scene range in f-stops to determine how long to develop the film. By following the steps outlined in his books The Negative and The Print it was possible to produce prints with the same stunning “more than seen by eye” tonal ranges.
Discovering and learning Adams methods paid amazing personal dividends. The full-range portfolio prints I made using his system helped land my first job assisting one of the most successful wedding photographer and teacher of other pros at the time and my second in the photo lab of National Geographic where I learned photo reproduction for offset printing and got a side-gig teaching photo reproduction at a college. That led to a job as production manager at a large magazine printer and a 28 year career in printing management in the Foreign Service managing a US Information Agency printing center. When one of magazines we printed did a story on Adams I worked with a dozen of his original prints, I reproduced as full-range double-black duotones to reveal as much tonality and detail in the shadows possible with web offset printing.
Back in the early 70s, I once saw Ansel Adams across a crowded gallery room. He gave a lecture/presentation followed by a gallery reception of his work at Utah State University. This was before I knew who he was and later came to appreciate his work and importance in photography. I knew I wanted to learn more about photography and subsequently enrolled in a basic photo class and knew I was hooked. From books and videos I learned he was quite a character. Here's a presentation by Andrea Stillman, a former Adams assistant and who helped edit the book in your hands, that is quite illuminating -- ruclips.net/video/itVRc4MwFyI/видео.html And thanks for another stellar video!
How you cut your finger?
Most of the tools that were made available in the early versions of the photoshop were actually a mathematical representation of the actions that people like Adams performed in the darkroom to enhance the negatives or the prints. People thes edays look very superficially at Ansel Adam's work. It is a shame as his work is highly complex in composition and beauty and technically unsurpassed.
Prisoners of war? Todd, they were American citizens not Japanese prisoners of war.
I don’t think he meant anything negative about them and clearly expressed the negativity about the society that interned them.
Was his dark to light to dark to light a tribute to the piano keys which was also his passion?