The precision of Ansel Adams
Landscape, Environment and Sharpness
Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco, California. He was the only son of the Adams family. He was a photographer and a conservationist. In the history of his career, Ansel Adams was known for his black and white landscape photographs of magnificent backdrops of mountains, lakes, ridges and rivers.
During his childhood, he was constantly active and hyper. His bundles of energy would later intrigued him to patronize scenic landscapes of Yosemite Park where he resided in most parts of his life. He was artistically inclined, especially in music, when he played the piano at the age of 12. This hyper constructed discipline behavior cultivated in momentous technical precision that surfaced in the face of photography.
Ansel Adams, along with Fred Archer was known for creating the Zone System.
Zone System is not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles of sensitometry.
Essentially, the zone system focuses on the concept of visualization. There are 10 levels of image values, ranging from the darkest which is black to the lightest, white. The system allows the photographer, with well-equipped lens, camera and other photography essentials, to visualize the image created. However, the human eye has more sensory receptors compared to the eye of the camera.
The exposure meter comes in handy when measuring the levels of image values one likes to render and apply with. Normal photographers would go from a zone three to zone seven for average and optimized settings. However, Ansel Adams was a genius in applying the visualization concept. By going a stop, two stops above the normal exposure, he was able to create dynamic and contrasting images that catches the intensity of the surrounding environments within the image. Ansel Adams’s control of light in his images, using the exposure scale through thorough measurements of appropriate application of aperture and shutter speed, was a skill he clearly mastered.
A classic example of Ansel Adam’s work.
The Tetons and the Snake River
Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.
The craft of Ansel Adams was technically precise, sharp and remotely challenging, but he also had a deep understanding and knowledge of the environment. Places he ventured in Yosemite where photography spots were hard to tether by, with an enduring energy and grit.
As an environmentalist and conservationist, Ansel Adams was regarded as a touchstone of preserving the nature and wilderness of Yosemite.
A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.
His philosophy of transcendentalism, believing the goodness of people and nature, and sharing the wondrous sights of beauty and mind, that clearly resonates with his perfection of his work. The work that he envisioned how America would look like, the beauty of nature in all its glory.
The whole world is, to me, very much “alive” — all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can’t look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life — the things going on — within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood.
Zones system applied in Ansel Adams’s Mount Mckinley and Wonder Lake
For many great photographers, the subject becomes a form of pursuing art that transcends the physical existent sight. The sight of rock, trees and lifeless objects seems mundane to the individual, but for Ansel Adams, it is a way of feeling that bridges a relation between the photographer and the subject, in which he is able to capture with pure precision and technique.
The depth of the images are really just astonishing. I think it's a balance of the medium being silver reduction printing, and his brilliant ability to use it appropriately.