Ansel Easton Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West.

He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favoured sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph. Adams was an advocate of environmental protection, national parks and creating an enduring legacy of responses to the power of nature and sublime condition.

He created a Zonal System to ensure that all tonal values created by highlights, low-lights and mid-tones are represented in the images.

The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development. It provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with black-and-white sheet film, the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black-and-white and colour, negative and reversal and to digital photography.

Ansel Adams was also very concerned with the tonal range of an image, the 11 zones in Ansel Adams’ system were defined to represent the gradation of all the different tonal values you would see in a black and white print, with zone 5 being middle grey, zone 0 being pure black (with no detail), and zone 10 being pure white (with no detail).

ANALYSIS OF ANSEL ADAMS’ WORK

Moon and Half Dome by Ansel Adams is a prime example of his work, the heavy contrast between tonal values (ranging from the pure white of the snow and moon to the pitch black of the shadows on the mountain). The texture of the mountain is very visible, adding more depth to the images, strong shadows which are in the foreground frame the centrepiece of the moon and cliff- leading to a very atmospheric, dramatic image which successfully exudes strong emotions (linking to romanticism) and a steady, clear aesthetic.

For my second photoshoot I started at Waitrose and made my way into the valley behind it until I got close to B&Q which is where I stopped. I focused on taking rural landscape images of my surroundings and switched between the monochrome and colour setting to get different types of images. I also wanted to see what they would look like if I edited them in black and white. I mostly took photographs of the trees and paths because they are what interested me the most.

Contact Sheets

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Romanticism emerged after 1789, the year of the French Revolution that caused a relevant social change in Europe. Romanticism, first defined as an aesthetic in literary criticism around 1800, gained momentum as an artistic movement in France and Britain in the early decades of the nineteenth century and flourished until the mid-century. Romanticism spread throughout Europe in the 19th century and developed as an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that embraced various arts such as literature, painting, music and history. Romanticism was also expressed in architecture through the imitation of older architectural styles.

Romanticism was an art form that rejected classicalism and focused on nature, imagination and emotion. Landscape photography was popular at this time, therefore, romantic landscapes were common. The landscapes focused on the beauty of nature and included a lot of running water and vast forests.

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Ansel Adams

Ansel Easton Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He and Fred Archer developed an exacting system of image-making called the Zone System, a method of achieving a desired final print through a deep technical understanding of how tonal range is recorded and developed during exposure, negative development, and printing. The resulting clarity and depth of such images characterized his photography.

The zone system of Ansel Adams divides the photo into eleven zones; nine shades of grey, together with pure black and pure white. Adams, who photographed in black in the white negative film made sure to expose the darkest parts of his scenery. This way he prevented having pure black in the photo. When developing his photo paper, he made sure to manipulate the dark and light parts in his photo in such a way, that the shades of grey would follow his zone system.

The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development. The Zone System provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with black-and-white sheet film, the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black-and-white and colour, negative and reversal and to digital photography.

Adams’s reputation soared in 1931 following his first solo exhibition, featuring sixty of his photographs of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. In 1932, Adams founded Group f/64 with Edward Weston, the group was active between 1932 and 1935, during this time they comprised a group of photographers – including Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Consuelo Kanaga, Henry Swift, Alma Lavenson, and Sonya Noskowiak. The group advocated Straight and unmanipulated photography over pictorialism.

During the early 1930s, Adams wrote for the magazine Camera Craft and published his book Making a Photograph in 1935, in which he demonstrated a technical, but straightforward and approachable way of writing about photography. Making a Photograph was a great success and continued the newly established tradition of the photography manual. The book was illustrated with high-quality reproductions of his photographs, and technical commentary about how to “make” rather than “take” the best photographs.

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Don McCullin

Sir Donald McCullin is a British photojournalist, particularly recognised for his war photography and images of urban strife. His career, which began in 1959, has specialised in examining the underside of society, and his photographs have depicted the unemployed, downtrodden and impoverished. McCullin has documented the poverty of London’s East End, the horrors of wars in Africa, Asia or the Middle East. As well as creating pictures of arranged still lives, soulful portraits and moving landscapes.

McCullin was called up for National Service with the RAF. After postings to Egypt, Kenya and Cyprus he returned to London armed with a twin reflex Rolleicord camera and began photographing friends from a local gang named The Guv’nors. McCullin was persuaded to show these to the picture editor at the Observer in 1959, he earned his first commission at age 23 and began his long and distinguished career in photography.

McCullin mainly focused on photographing and writing about the wars and the main events going on around the world, one of his bigger pieces was in 1961 when he won the British Press Award for his essay on the construction of the Berlin Wall. His first taste of war came in Cyprus, in 1964, where he covered the armed eruption of ethnic and nationalistic tension, he initially wrote for the Observer and, from 1966, for The Sunday Times. Away from war Don’s work has often focused on the suffering of the poor and underprivileged and he has produced moving essays on the homeless of London’s East End and the working classes of Britain’s industrialised cities.

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From the early 1980s, he focused his foreign adventures on more peaceful matters. He travelled extensively through Indonesia, India and Africa returning with powerful essays on places and people that, in some cases, had few if any previous encounters with the Western world. At home, he has spent three decades chronicling the English countryside – in particular the landscapes of Somerset – and creating meticulously constructed still life’s all to great acclaim. Yet he still feels the lure of war. As recently as October 2015 Don travelled to Kurdistan in northern Iraq to photograph the Kurds’ three-way struggle with ISIS, Syria and Turkey.

Image Analysis

I have chosen this photo because of its harsh light from the sun which looks like a mist covering the mountains. The light sort of resembles a spot like shining on the stage which how you can only see it directly on one spot in the midground. The angle which the photo was taken at makes the pebbles and rocks in the foreground seem bigger than they are. Ansel Adams must have gotten quite close to the ground to take this as the rocks are mostly in focus and they slowly lose that when they get further away. The smaller rocks are also a lot more pigmented than the mounts in the background due to the angle and closeness of the camera. The photo is also a good example of Adam’s zone system, for example, the clouds would probably be placed at a 9 or 10 whereas the spaces in-between the smaller rocks might be put at a 0 or 1 which shows how Ansel captures every different contrasting shade in his photos.

Juxtaposition

A juxtaposition involves pairing 2 or more images together to show similarities or differences between the them. It often involves positioning the different subjects next to each other [for example a tall and short person] and photographing them in order to present how the differences/similarities between them.

One way of doing this is by recreating an older photo by posing the model in a similar way to the older image. This would be a juxtaposition as it’s comparing the past to the present and showing the differences in life through a similarity [the positions of the models]. The website ED.EM.03 presents Henry Mullins [mid-1800’s] and Michelle Sank’s [2013] work on portraiture side by side, emphasising how things have changed over time from the camera quality to the type of clothing being worn.

My Juxtaposition

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For this juxtaposition, I found an old photo of me as a child and decided to take some photos of myself with the butterflies on my face. I kept the older photo the same but decided to lower the saturation on the remake other than the orange of the butterflies, drawing attention towards them, in order to create a contrast between the colourful and bright nature of the older image. This way, I was able to establish a juxtaposition through the age of the images and through some of the visual aspects too.

Up Close

Up close photography involves taking sharp and detailed photos of the subject, usually isolating the subject so that it’s the only thing in frame which draws a lot of attention towards all the details [such as texture, scratches etc] in the final image.

Taking up close portraits usually creates interesting results as the wrinkles/texture in the skin are exaggerated in a way that emphasises the persons features as they are. Japanese photographer Satoshi Fujiwara is a good example of this as he secretly takes extremely close up portraits of passengers on trains in Berlin and edits them to make the ‘models’ unrecognisable, emphasising on their skin, imperfections and obscuring their individuality.

“I set out to obscure the individuality and specificity of the subjects in the pictures/images in this series. In facial close-ups, I used framing and trimming to make it difficult to identify the individual by eliminating elements such as clothing and personal effects.” –Satoshi Fujiwara

Another photographer who takes interesting, up close portraits is Bruce Gilden, an American photographer whose goal is to take unflattering photos, with the help of a flashgun, of random people he sees in a variety of places from New York, France, Russia and many more. He originally started by taking photos in black and white but has gradually switched to shooting in colour, allowing him to truly capture the people he sees.

“I’m known for taking pictures very close, and the older I get, the closer I get” -Bruce Gilden

My Portraits

In order to create these edits, I increased the saturation and clarity of the images, giving them a more distant and unrealistic feel. I then increased the sharpness of the images to make sure each detail was clear in the area that was in focus [as I used a shallow depth of field for my photos].

Romanticism in the arts was brought in during the 18th-19th century as a movement, it strayed away from the classical art form and brought in the use of nature, emotion and imagination. It was used by painters, writers, poets and photographers later on, it was used as symbolism to show how nature has changed and how industrialisation had taken over in many areas.

Romanticism artists

William Blake was one of the first English artists who used romanticism in their artwork, he created powerful and unique images where he used colour and was able to create a lot of hand-drawn books. In Blakes last decade before his death, he recognised how there was a whole new generation of romantic artists who supported and liked his work for inspiration, these included John Linnell, Edward Calvert, Samuel Palmer, etc.
Here are some examples of his work:

Further along, Samuel Palmer took inspiration from William Blake in his work which led him to becoming one of the most influential landscape artists who focussed on romanticism. His art mainly included watercolours and the rich, calm colours of nature, similar to Blakes which can be seen throughout his work.
Here are some examples of his work:

This eventually fell into photography, which I will discuss below.

Romanticism photographers

By the 1900s, photographers such as Ansel Adams began to experiment with romanticism in photography. He photographed images of the American West, which he is most famous for and created the group of photographers we know today as f/64. He favoured dark contrasts in his work and focussed on the darker aspects of tones, which led to him creating Zonal System. Just as romanticism was used to show a movement within art, it can be seen in photography as Ansel Adams uses it to show environmental protection.
Here are some examples of his work:

Ansel Adams work also inspired the work of many other romantic landscape photographers such Fay Godwin, Don McCullin, Edward Weston, Galen Rowell, etc.

Galen Rowell focuses with colour mainly within his work with landscape photography. He captures the sunsets, sunrises and other various natural landscapes from different point of views.
Here are some examples of his work:

PHOTOGRAPHY CONTROLLED CONDITIONS 
Mon 23th May – Wed 25th May inclusive (15 hours)

Groups 12C + 12D Periods 1-5 Mon 23rd May, Tues 24th, Wed 25th May…

1. Select, edit and arrange final images
2. Complete all relevant and supporting blog posts
3. Add final images to print folder
4. Frame up / mount all available prints from previous projects
5. Review blog and make improvements

Follow the 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :

1. Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
2. Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
3. Artist References / Case Studies (must include image analysis) (AO1)
4. Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
5. Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
6. Image Selection, sub selection, review and refine ideas (AO2)
7. Image Editing/ manipulation / experimentation (AO2)
8. Presentation of final outcomes (AO4)
9. Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference(AO1)
10. Evaluation and Critique (AO1+AO4)

Use this helpsheet to tackle your analysis and interpretation of key imagery throughout your project…

MONDAY

Ensure your images are organised into suitable folders in the M : Drive

Import images into Adobe Lightroom

Edit / manipulate in Lightroom / Photoshop

Update blog as you go and include screenshots of your process where necessary and annotate.

TUESDAY

Ensure all blog posts are complete (Steps 1-10)

Review and refine your process

WEDNESDAY

1. FINAL PRINTS
2. – Mock display: Blog post showing evidence of how you intend to present and display your final prints – make mock up in Photoshop – for example. a single image or diptych, triptych, predella, size A5, A4 or A3, typology-style grid, collage etc.
3. – Virtual gallery: Download an empty gallery file…then insert your images and place them on the walls. Adjust the perspective, size and shape using CTRL T (free transform) You can also add things like a drop shadow to make the image look more realistic…

File Handling and printing...

This will ensure you have the correct ASPECT RATIO

Ensure you label and save your file in you M :Drive and then copy across to the M:\Radio\Departments\Photography\Students\Image Transfer\Year 12 Anthropocene May 2022

For a combination of images, or square format images you use the ADOBE PHOTOSHOP > NEW DOCUMENT + PRINT PRESETS on to help arrange images on the correct size page (A3, A4, A5)

You can do this using Photoshop, Set up the page sizes as templates and import images into each template, then you can see for themselves how well they fit… but remember to add an extra 6mm for bleed (3mm on each side of the page) to the original templates. i.e. A4 = 297mm x 210 but the template size for this would be 303mm x 216mm.

Making a Virtual Gallery in Photoshop

Download an empty gallery file…then insert your images and palce them on the walls. Adjust the persepctive, size and shape using CTRL T (free transform) You can also add things like a drop shadow to make the image look more realistic…

…or using online software

How I did it:

Step 1: Go to www.artsteps.com

Step 2: Sign in / up.

Step 3: Create.

Step 4: Create your own location or choose a template.

Step 5: Upload your images, put them in your exhibition, name it and give it a description.

Step 6: Present / view your Exhibition.

YOUR FINAL BLOG POST SHOULD CLEARLY SHOW 3-5 POSSIBLE FINAL OUTCOMES for ANTHRPOCENE, INCLUDING YOUR PRESENTATION METHOD

1. sequencing of images
2. grouping of images -grids , triptych, diptych, dioramas, predellas
3. sculptural / multi-media approaches
4. framing methods
5. blog (show examples of frames / borders + process)
6. clarity of final outcomes—which images are your final outcomes?
7. coursework round – up and evaluation

FROM THIS YOU CAN CHOOSE YOUR IMAGES FOR PRINTING

Contemporary approaches to presentation :

Research and explore alternative approaches to presenting your final images. This should be an integral part of your concept…not a gimmick…ultimately, the quality of your photography will be the primary focus and your mark will reflect this…

Sculptural methods…

Two-Frame / Diptych Arrangements

Triptych (3 frame)

Grid Layout

Ansel Easton Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favoured sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph.

Originally working in the Pictorialist style, widely popular in the 1910s and 1920s, Adams encountered Paul Strand’s photography in 1930, and rejected his earlier painterly, soft focus style for a new “pure” and sharp focus approach.

Adams’s professional life was dedicated to capturing through his lens the forgotten and unspoiled wilderness of America’s national parks and other protected conservation areas in the West. He was a committed environmentalist and nothing short of an icon for the 20th century conservation movement.

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Ansel Adams most famous photo goes by the name of ‘The Face of Half Dome’. On the chilly spring morning of April 10th, 1927, Ansel Adams set out along Yosemite’s LeConte Gully to capture an image of the striking sheer face of Half Dome, one of Yosemite National Park’s most iconic natural features.

Sublime photography – The Sublime is a western aesthetic concept of ‘the exalted’ of ‘beauty that is grand and dangerous’. The Sublime refers to the wild, unbounded grandeur of nature. The Sublime is related to threat and agony, to spaces where calamities happen or things run beyond human control.

Sublime photography moodboard:

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Painting vs Photography

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In the top photos that are originally paintings the colours used are all slightly dark and dull which is very similar with the photography taken by Joao Laet of a burnt forest in brazil. All images have a lot of shadowing which creates an effect of darkness and danger towards the viewer.

João Laet

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The earliest known evidence of a landscape photograph was taken between the years of 1826 and 1827. It was an urban landscape photo taken by a French inventor by the name of Nicephore Niepce. landscape photography was able to capture something that until that time paintings hadn’t been able to.

Mood board

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Fay Godwin

Fay Godwin was a British photographer best known for her black and white landscape photographs of the British countryside and coastline.

She began taking photos seriously in 1966 after gaining a passion for photographing her children in the early 60s, her work was influenced by books and magazines at the time. As an active environmentalist, Godwin makes the land in her photographs reveal traces of its history, through mankind’s occupation and and intervention.

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early life

Fay was born in Berlin Germany in 1931. Her father was a British diplomat and her mother was an American artist. She grew up in various different countries surrounded by a multi-cultural, upper class and artistic environments which helped shape her passion and interest for contemporary arts and literature.

She settled down in London at the age of 21 but she was spending most of her time travelling Europe as a travel representative. After six years of wondering around Europe Godwin took a job at a publishers where she was in charge of commissioning book covers which helped her become a perfectionist when it came to her own books she published later on in life.

this is a strong image as it shows good contrast between the hills and the sky the image has a darker outer edge which helps add depth to the centre of the image by establishing a strong horizon line.

I really like the way the textures in the image stand out in black and white due to the rubble and wear of the tunnel works and how the strong shadows create a good contrast between highlights throughout the image. Although the image itself is in black and white it has a warmer tone to it.