Legacy: Think Like Ansel Adams Today

Tools and aesthetics have changed, but the techniques of the great American landscape master still apply

Photography By Ansel Adams And Phil Hawkins

Labels: How-To, Camera Technique

This Article Features Photo Zoom

Look For “Grandscapes”
4 Adams’ landscapes are “grandscapes.” When we look at images like this one, we feel small and insignificant in comparison to the landscape. Often, an Adams grandscape had a “stand back and marvel at the scene” feel to it. Some have described Adams’ whole mentality as one who would rather bring a viewer to the scene instead of taking a photograph. He often used longer focal-length lenses, which tend to flatten the field and create the “from a distance” look.

Today, the notion of the grandscape still exists, but the aesthetics have changed. The “stand back and admire” look has been replaced by an immersive look and feel where the viewer feels like he or she is part of the scene instead of an observer from a distance. In this color image, the grandeur of Yosemite Valley is clear, but the photographer makes us feel like we’re in the scene. It’s an evolution of the Adams grandscape.

Think About The Sky
5 Many of Ansel Adams’ best-known landscapes have skies that are at least as dramatic, if not more dramatic, than the terrestrial features. Booming clouds add a sense of majesty to any scene. In both the Adams black-and-white image and the color image shown here, the mountains and valleys play supporting roles to the incredible skies. When you’re faced with an interesting sky, let it be the focus of your photograph, not an afterthought.

Skies like this often happen at times of the day when we don’t think about shooting. A modern landscape shooter is conditioned to think in terms of the “magic hour” as being the only time to shoot. However, Adams made a great many of his best images in midday sun. To get your best midday images, think about tools such as filters to darken blue skies and draw texture out of clouds. Also, notice how midday sun has the benefit of illuminating steep mountains and valleys.

Yosemite Yesterday And Today
Comparing the environment of shooting photos in Yosemite then and now, one would be surprised at the stark differences. For instance, photographing meadows in summer was impossible due to the inundation of campers who occupied any flat space. There was no control of camping in those days, and meadows were trampled. Grazing animals also were common, corrals were everywhere, and farm animals often ate grasses in meadows down to the bare dirt. Today, you can photograph various Yosemite meadows that look very close to what they were like before 1851.

Cameras and equipment were bulky and heavy, making it difficult to move around when conditions changed. Exposing one image took 10 minutes of setup procedures. But photographers could go where they wanted, when they wanted, with no restrictions whatsoever, unlike today in which one must obtain backcountry permits. The trail system wasn’t as developed as it is today, so the only way to travel with photography equipment was with mules. Today, equipment is lighter, and the trail system allows a photographer to go deep into the wilderness in relative safety and speed.

The Camera Comparison: Yesterday And Today
*Toyo 4x5 Field Camera*	Camera technology has undergone a complete revolution since Ansel Adams’ time. While some photographers continue to use large-format 4x5s and film, most of us have embraced digital models. For years, it had been thought that a digital camera with its smaller sensor and lack of camera movements would be unable to create the look of a view camera, but it’s becoming an open question if that’s still true. Tilt-shift lenses and high-resolution/low-noise cameras are giving digital shooters the same tools that a large-format film shooter has, and there are other benefits of digital that a 4x5 can’t touch. LCDs and histograms give us a precise look at a photograph while film shooters can only guess until the film is processed and by then it’s too late to reshoot. Some nature photographers continue to use 4x5 because the process is personally rewarding, but for getting the best photographs, digital cameras have bridged the gap.
*Nikon D700*

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G Dan Mitchell makes this comment

Saturday, 28 March 2009

Interesting article, as far as it goes. However, it continues some myths about Adams, and to the extent that photographers today try to learn from his work it is not helpful to cherry pick from that work to create a somewhat false notion of what he did. Two photographs of his came to mind for me as I read this article - largely because they contradict or at least "complexify" this simplistic notion of Adams seen here. The whole notion of careful pre-visualization and precise use of the zone system breaks down when you learn who "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941" was shot. The "grandscape" idea is also only part of the story - Adams created some very wonderful portraits, and he also was very interested in "smallscapes" in which he focused on small details - and he said as much about his work. (I'm thinking of a wonderful photograph of some redwood forest vegetation.) G Dan Mitchell
Stratocaster makes this comment

Thursday, 26 March 2009

"Ansel Adams manipulated his images extensively through the use of push-and-pull processing when he developed his sheets of film and then extensive dodging and burning when he printed." I can't remember exactly what show it was on, but one retrospective of Adams I saw on PBS some years ago documented that he would use a microwave oven as part of his print drying process. He claimed that made the whites brighter without burning them out. So even he was not above using a little "modern technology" when it suited his purpose.
Howard Batt makes this comment

Sunday, 01 March 2009

Dale says, "Anyone who would make a nonsense statement like this about "guessing until the film comes back from processing" doesn't know crap about photography and shouldn't be allowed to write photo articles for mass consumtion" I admit it, Dale - I guessed a lot with film and don't know crap. To make matters worse, I don't think Ansel Adams was the greatest photographer (landscape, grandscape or otherwise) who ever lived. And to really cap it all - I don't think people who talk like you talk should be allowed to comment in a website like this one. Rather, I think you should go back to your Argus or Kodak film camera, take a pill and then take a hike. It'll clear your mind and make you a calmer, nicer person.
Dale Francis Mara makes this comment

Thursday, 26 February 2009

Anyone who would make a nonsense statement like this about "guessing until the film comes back from processing" doesn't know crap about photography and shouldn't be allowed to write photo articles for mass consumtion ~~~ especially about the zone system! The intrinsic beauty of the zone system is that the photographer knows exactly what the negative (and print) will look like BEFORE he/she releases the shutter! And, of course, anyone knowledgeably using the zone system would not and could not allow anyone but one's self to process his/her film because processing is the root source of the control the zone system is. "LCDs and histograms give us a precise look at a photograph..." Only to the extent of the digital camera's contrast latitude ability, which still does not come close to film, even color.
Jess Merrill makes this comment

Wednesday, 18 February 2009

Only slightly relevant to the context of the article is that Adams most often used an 8X10 view camera rather than a 4X5. More germane to the article, the author describes how Adams created the "stand back and admire" feel through the notion of a grandscape using long lenses, but how do we create the more contemporary "immersive" feel of a photograph?
wolf makes this comment

Sunday, 15 February 2009

Nice article but it is hysterical to read the Camera Comparison part. Any photographer who knows what he/she is doing has no problem capturing what they intend without a re-shoot. Because they mastered their craft. That's how they did for the greater part of photographic history. My grandmother now and then shoots pictures worthy of exhibition with a digital camera too and so does everybody else's grandmother .....and obviously photographers who depend on modern technology to shoot a worthy photo.
Mirko makes this comment

Sunday, 15 February 2009

Great article i must say, even though i missed some more in-depth text about Adam's work and today's digital shooterrs world. As you say, some photographers still use 4x5 and i believe that that's how things are still going to be for the serious landscape photographer, basically, because of the wild and absurdly huge resolution that a single 4x5 slide can create in comparison with the highest megapixel camera in the market. This magazine is great, but maybe it's been turning a lot into digital, sometimes forgetting all about film, even when a lot of your covers are made that way. Best regards and keep up the fantastic work!
Jack Schade makes this comment

Wednesday, 11 February 2009

Great article. Good ideas that get us to think on a different level. Why not try to pre-visualize like Ansel Adams. Jack Schade
Chris Fernando makes this comment

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

>>LCDs and histograms give us a precise look at a photograph while film shooters can only guess until the film is processed and by then it’s too late to reshoot.raphers" were able to afford $850,000 houses and buy a new car every two years. Take a step back folks; oh wait you don't have a choice there anymore, either :-(
Franklin O Pratt makes this comment

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

I found your article to be encouraging and helpful. First and most important to me is the parallel drawn in the article to film and digital processing. It is often stated by many photographers that they don't process their shots as a statement of their adherence to manipulation-free digital work and a testament to their fidelity with film processing. Second, an attitude of museum and art center folk still leans against digital imagery as less than an artistic piece by categorizing digital photography in terms like "digitally enhanced photograph." I must admit this gets under my skin a bit. If art isn't a representation as the artist/photographer's previsualization, then what is it, regardless of venue? thanks for the illustrations to Mr. Hawkins used in this article and the guidance to work like Mr. Adams.

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Legacy: Think Like Ansel Adams Today

Tools and aesthetics have changed, but the techniques of the great American landscape master still apply

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