My Photoshoot is inspired by Ansel Adams and the work that he did. To achieve similar images like these I prioritised on taking pictures of jerseys coast, jerseys coast was perfect as I was able to create similar images like Ansel Adams by taking photos of the cliff side.

Contact Sheet

There were many images that I liked but the majority I felt weren’t up to the standards that I was looking for. Some pictures that were not selected for use were either low light which was due to the exposure settings not being set right or I was not satisfied with the view that I captured. The images that I did select I was very happy with as it matched Ansel Adams style and the view or the angle the photo was taken was perfect for the standards that I had set.

My Top Choices

I have selected these photos as my top choices as I believe that they look the most appealing, I also think that they match up closely to Ansel Adams style, they also have lots of potential especially when edited as I will be able to bring out more details and enhance things like the lighting or shadows to make the photo become more effective and striking to the peoples eye.

Editing Process

Photo #1

With this photo I converted it into a HDR image in order to bring back details in the sky and the lighting from the sun that was hitting the floor. To further enhance this image I adjusted the vibrancy and dehaze to make the image look more colourful, I also adjusted the brightness to make the image more brighter so that the details and the scene of the photo looked more appealing to look at. I decided to leave this image in colour as I believe that it looks more appealing in colour than in black and white.

Photo #2

With this photo I adjusted the exposure and brightness settings in order to brighten up the image as there were some areas which were underexposed so by adjusting those settings it helped to brighten up those areas and made it much clearer to view. I also adjusted the vibrancy and saturation to bring out more colour on that big patch of grass and the plants at the top which in my opinion helps to bring out more detail and clarity in those areas.

Photo #3

With this photo I decided to set it to a black and white colour scheme to match with Ansel Adams photos but also because I feel that it comes off more effective and appealing in black and white rather than colour. The only sliders I adjusted was the black and white in order to achieve that dramatic effect that Ansel Adams achieves with his photos. I adjusted the blacks all the way down in order to make the dark areas even more darker and adjusted the white slightly to brighten up the lighter areas so its more detailed and clearer to view.

Photo #4

With this photo I also decided to set it in black and white as I believe that it looks more appealing and eye catching. I adjusted the black and whites by lowering the black levels significantly and turning up the white levels slightly. I also lowered the shadows to make those dark areas even darker and turned up the brightness to bring more light out around the illuminated rocks and the sky. This photo is one of my favourites as I believe that it utilises the zone system well and I also think that it looks the most dramatic which was my aim for these photos.

Photo #5

With this photo I decided to set it in black and white as I believe that it looks objectively better than in colour. I adjusted many sliders in this photo in order to achieve this final result, the photo to begin with was slightly over exposed and some bright areas ended up being too dark like around the cliff. To fix these issues I made the photo into a HDR image which brought some details out in the photo, fixed some of the areas that were supposed to be brighter and it fixed some of the overexposed areas. After fixing these issues I made it black and white and adjusted the black levels all the way down as well as decreasing the shadows slightly to make those dark areas darker, next I adjusted the brightness and contrast to brighten up the image overall to make it clearer to see and adjusted the contrast up to ensure that the shadows were truly dark. Its important that the darker areas of the photos are really black to utilise the zone system but to also achieve that dramatic effect in my images.

Final Images

Overall I think that my final images have turned out to look really good and presentable. The images in colour capture the landscape really well with the detail of the ground and the natural sunlight being shown clearly and the vibrant colours in the grass and the sea have been displayed beautifully. The images in black and white contains amazing characteristics with most of them utilising a dramatic black and white colour scheme to match Ansel Adams style but also utilising the zone system well with having the bright areas of the photo being really white and the darker areas like the shadows being really black making the images more effective and inviting to look at. The landscapes in the photo were perfect for this project as its similar in a sense to the type of images Ansel Adams took but it also allowed me to edit them and utilise methods like the zone system and HDR which really improved the quality and maximised the potential of these images.

Exposure Compensation –

Exposure compensation basically helps you override automatic exposure adjustments your camera makes in situations with uneven light distribution, filters, non-standard processing, or underexposure or overexposure. It lets you take control of your image’s brightness by manually increasing or decreasing exposure.

Exposure Bracketing –

When you bracket your shots you take exactly the same picture of your subject at several different exposures. This technique gives you a range of options to choose from when you’re editing. As a result, it’s much less likely that you’ll end up with a badly underexposed or overexposed photo.

HDR Photos –

HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photos refers to the capture of an entire image scene that has both bright highlights and dark shadows. In other words, instead of capturing highlights that are clipped and pure white, and/or shadows that are lost to total darkness, your image depicts visible detail in all areas.

My Own Exposure Bracketing

I decided to take my own images of the exposure bracketing technique, by changing the settings to apply. The steps were very straightforward,

Merging the images

Once I took my three images, I uploaded them to Lightroom where I merged them. The way I did this is by selecting the three images, right clicking, pressing photo merge and lastly, I pressed HDR. This merged the three images together, to create a dramatic and detailed image.

Final HDR image

This is my final image below, where the colours are very vibrant. This is because the three images

 

Creative Editing

Vignette

Lightening the image – Dehaze

Who?

Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) 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. He and Fred Archer developed a system of image-making called the Zone System, a method of achieving a desired final print through a technical understanding of how the tonal range of an image is the result of choices made in exposure, negative development, and printing.

Childhood

One of Adams’s earliest memories was watching the smoke from the fires caused by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Then four years old, Adams was uninjured in the initial shaking but was tossed face-first into a garden wall during an aftershock three hours later, breaking and scarring his nose. A doctor recommended that his nose be reset once he reached maturity, but it remained crooked and necessitated mouth breathing for the rest of his life.

Adams was a hyperactive child and prone to frequent sickness and hypochondria. He had few friends, but his family home and surroundings on the heights facing the Golden Gate provided ample childhood activities. He had little patience for games or sports; but he enjoyed the beauty of nature from an early age, collecting bugs and exploring Lobos Creek all the way to Baker Beach and the sea cliffs leading to Lands End, “San Francisco’s wildest and rockiest coast, a place strewn with shipwrecks and rife with landslides.

At age 14, he was given his first camera during his first visit to Yosemite National Park. He developed his early photographic work as a member of the Sierra Club. He was later contracted with the United States Department of the Interior to make photographs of national parks.

Sierra Club

The Sierra Club’s stated mission is “To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth’s ecosystems and resources; To educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.”

Ansel Adams was an official director of the Sierra Club from 1934-1971.

1927

In 1927, Adams began working with Albert M. Bender, a San Francisco insurance magnate and arts patron. Bender helped Adams produce his first portfolio in his new style, Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras, which included his famous image Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, which was taken with his Korona view camera, using glass plates and a dark red filter (to heighten the tonal contrasts). On that excursion, he had only one plate left, and he “visualized” the effect of the blackened sky before risking the last image. He later said, “I had been able to realize a desired image: not the way the subject appeared in reality but how it felt to me and how it must appear in the finished print.” One biographer calls Monolith Adams’s most significant photograph because the “extreme manipulation of tonal values” was a departure from all previous photography. Adams’s concept of visualization, which he first defined in print in 1934, became a core principle in his photography.

1930s

Bender took Adams on visits to Taos, New Mexico, where Adams met and made friends with the poet Robinson Jeffers, artists John Marin and Georgia O’Keeffe, and photographer Paul Strand. His talkative, high-spirited nature combined with his excellent piano playing made him popular among his artist friends. His first book, Taos Pueblo, was published in 1930 with text by writer Mary Hunter Austin.

During the 1930s, Adams began to deploy his photographs in the cause of wilderness preservation. He was inspired partly by the increasing incursion into Yosemite Valley of commercial development, including a pool hall, bowling alley, golf course, shops, and automobile traffic. He created the limited-edition book Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail in 1938, as part of the Sierra Club’s efforts to secure the designation of Kings Canyon as a national park. This book and his testimony before Congress played a vital role in the success of that effort, and Congress designated Kings Canyon as a national park in 1940, despite previous failures to get the creation of the national park approved.

Kings Canyon Crisis

Kings Canyon was targeted by water supply and power interests including the city of Los Angeles, who wanted to build hydroelectric dams in Kings Canyon. Due to its heavy flow and long drop – 11,000 feet (3,400 m) in less than 80 miles (130 km) – the Kings River has considerable hydroelectric potential, and reservoirs were proposed for Cedar Grove, Tehipite Valley and Simpson Meadow, among other sites. Development interests blocked legislation that would have made the area a national park, but at the same time, the environmental lobby prevented any of these projects from being built.

Later, Ansel Adams was tasked to photograph and document the area, generating publicity for the preservation movement. However, in order to placate the local irrigation districts – who wanted to leave open the option of reservoirs – Cedar Grove and Tehipite Valley were specifically excluded from the new park. On March 4, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill to create Kings Canyon National Park, which added the original General Grant National Park to over 400,000 acres (160,000 ha) of the High Sierra above Cedar Grove.

Presidential Medal

 For his work and his persistent advocacy, which helped expand the National Park system, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.

Visualisation

Ansel Adams on visualisation:

“Visualisation is a conscious process of projecting the final photographic image in the mind before taking the first steps in actually photographing the subject.”

“The term visualisation refers to the entire emotional-mental process of creating a photograph, and as such, it is of the most important concepts in photography.”

“To visualise an image (in whole or in part) is to see it clearly in the mind prior to exposure, a continuous projection from composing the image through the final print.” Visualisation is more accurately viewed as an attitude toward photography . . .”

In simpler terms, visualisation is about imagining a scene and figuring out the best shot before taking a photograph.

Zone System

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 is pure black (with no detail), and zone 10 is pure white (with no detail).  Each zone represents one f-stop in exposure. There is an 11-stop difference between pure black and pure white, with a 7-stop difference between the darkest black with detail and the lightest white with detail.

Image Analysis

Technical – The lighting in this image is natural, likely during the day although a deep red-filter has been used to darken the sky. The aperture is definitely high, like f/64 since Ansel Adams liked to capture every single aspect of the image in focus.

Visual – Adams has captured the side of a mountain, taking up roughly 2/3 of the frame with a darkened sky visible in the top left as well as a snowy landscape littered with trees in the bottom left and bottom right. The image uses every zone in the zone system, with zones 0-3 being visible in the sky and zone 10 being seen on the snow in the right side of the image.

Contextual – Adams initially took this photograph using a yellow filter but didn’t like the tone of the sky so redid it using a deep red-filter, and was very pleased with the result. A very high aperture was also used since Ansel Adams and the f/64 Group as photographers liked ‘pure’ images, capturing every little detail of landscapes in focus.

Conceptual – Adams was very keen of ‘visualisation’, capturing an image in his mind’s eye before taking the actual image which is what he did when he positioned himself and pointed his camera at the mountain.

Contact Sheet

For my photoshoot, I focused mainly on cliffsides and the seascape whilst also experimenting with trees and greenery.

Selection

The pictures I have selected for editing each have a wide range of light and dark tones as well as compositions which create depth and drama that I will experiment with to see how editing can amplify this (e.g. to see if making the images black and white effectively uses the Zone System).

Editing/Experimentation

For my first edits of this image I darkened the sky to create more contrast between light and dark tones as well as create drama, and turned up the contrast and clarity for the foreground.

I then experimented with making it black and white, which I really liked since the darker tones of the foreground contrast effectively with the lighter tones of the sea and midtones of the sky.

With this image I darkened the sky again to create more drama since in the original image the sky was pastel-ly and bleached out.

Black and white variation, showing contrast between the sea, sky and landscape.

Lowered highlights and whites, increased contrast.

Black and white, creating a greater sense of drama.

Decreased contrast and highlights.

I then turned the image black and white in Photoshop, manually adjusting each colour, then increasing highlights, brightness and contrast to create more drama.

Above are the settings I used to create the effect.

Decreased highlights and whites to create more drama in the sky.

Black and white to create more contrast between the sky, sea and rocky foreground and increased contrast to highlight the range of tones in the rocks more.

Settings used to edit the photo.

Decreased highlights, slightly increased exposure and contrast.

Edited to have darker tones in the trees and leaves, midtones in the trees in the background and lighter tones in the sky.

Settings used to edit the image.

Presentation in ArtSteps

I like how these images work together in a triptych, since they were all taken at the same point of a cliff but of different areas, which makes them work effectively presented as a group since similarities between the photos.

I think these images work together somewhat nicely presented in a triptych since side by side the differences in composition and tonal ranges are clearly highlighted, although I think the middle photograph stands out a bit and doesn’t fit in quite as well as it is of a completely different landscape.

Key definitions:

Exposure Compensation – Exposure compensation is a technique for adjusting the exposure indicated by a photographic exposure meter, in consideration of factors that may cause the indicated exposure to result in a less-than-optimal image.

What does this mean?

Exposure Bracketing – a technique where you take multiple pictures of the same image at different exposures, then layer them to create one image

What does this actually do?

Exposure bracketing works well when shooting in conditions where the camera cannot take a natural-looking photograph. For example, when a bright light – the sun – causes extreme highlights and shadows.

HDR photos – In photography and videography, multi-exposure HDR capture is a technique that creates high dynamic range images by taking and combining multiple exposures of the same subject matter at different exposures.

What does this actually mean for photography?

There are several reasons why bracketing is essential in photography: It allows you to capture every detail in a scene. It helps you avoid overexposing or underexposing your photos. It gives you more options to choose from when you’re editing.

AEB

What is it?

It is a feature which allows you to take a sequence of images at different exposure values. This is useful when it is difficult to determine the correct exposure, or when dealing with moody lighting or interiors where it is often desirable to have a range of exposures to pick from later.

Case study:

Monolith, The Face of Half Dome

Technical

Ansel Adams was a pro at the technical side of photography, and Monolith, the Face of Half Dome shows that off perfectly. He used a large-format camera, which helped him capture tons of detail and a wide range of tones. The photo is a black-and-white gelatin silver print, which gives it those rich contrasts and deep blacks. Adams also controlled the exposure really carefully to make sure everything, from the shadows to the highlights, was just right. He was also known for using the zone system to manage exposure, which helped him get that perfect tonal range.

Visual

The composition is pretty striking. Half Dome’s rock face dominates the image, standing tall and powerful. The vertical orientation of the photo and the lines in the landscape really emphasize the rock’s size and texture. There’s a lot of contrast between the dark shadows on the rock and the bright areas lit by sunlight, which gives the whole image a dramatic feel. The rest of the landscape isn’t the main focus, but it’s still sharp, giving us a sense of the surrounding area without taking attention away from Half Dome.

Contextual

Adams took this photo in Yosemite National Park in 1927, a time when he was deeply involved in pushing for the conservation of natural spaces. The photo was part of his effort to show off the beauty of America’s national parks, especially Yosemite. Half Dome had already been a famous subject in American landscape photography, symbolizing the beauty of the wilderness. Adams used his photography to encourage people to appreciate and protect nature, especially as industrialization was on the rise.

Conceptual

Conceptually, the photo is all about nature’s power and timelessness. Half Dome, standing tall and dominating the landscape, represents the sheer scale and endurance of the natural world. Adams wanted to capture a feeling of connection between people and nature, and this photo really speaks to that. The contrast between light and dark also suggests a balance between opposing forces, like nature versus human influence or light versus shadow. Ultimately, Adams wanted to show us how grand and fragile nature can be.

Rural Landscapes

Ansel Adams

Who is he ?

Ansel Easton Adams, born on February 20, 1902, and passing away on April 22, 1984, was a prominent American photographer and environmentalist celebrated for his stunning black-and-white photographs of the American West. He played a key role in establishing Group f/64, a collective of photographers who promoted “pure” photography, emphasizing sharp focus and a full range of tones in their work. Along with Fred Archer, he created the Zone System, a technique that helps photographers achieve their desired final print by understanding how exposure, negative development, and printing choices affect the tonal range of an image.

Adams early life

Adams was born in the Fillmore District of San Francisco as the only child of Charles Hitchcock Adams and Olive Bray. He got his name from his uncle, Ansel Easton. His mom’s family originally came from Baltimore, where his grandfather had a successful freight-hauling business but lost a lot of money in failed mining and real estate investments in Nevada. The Adams family has roots in New England, having moved from northern Ireland in the early 1800s. His grandfather started a very successful lumber business that his dad later took over. However, as he grew older, Adams criticized the lumber industry for its role in destroying many of the redwood forests.

What inspired him?

Adams made his first trip to Yosemite National Park in 1916 with his family. He described his initial sight of the valley as an overwhelming experience, saying, “the splendor of Yosemite burst upon us and it was glorious…. One wonder after another descended upon us…. There was light everywhere…. A new era began for me.” During this visit, his father gifted him his first camera, an Eastman Kodak Brownie box camera, and he eagerly took his first photos with great excitement. The following year, he returned to Yosemite alone, equipped with better cameras and a tripod. In the winters of 1917 and 1918, he honed his darkroom skills while working part-time for a photography finishing company in San Francisco.

The Sierra club

The Sierra Club is a U.S.-based environmental group that has branches in every state, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. Established in 1892 in San Francisco by conservationist John Muir, it emerged from the progressive movement and became one of the earliest major organizations focused on environmental preservation globally. The club advocates for sustainable energy policies and works to combat global warming, while also opposing coal, hydropower, and nuclear energy. In elections, it typically supports liberal and progressive candidates.

1927

In 1927, Adams teamed up with Albert M. Bender, a wealthy insurance executive and supporter of the arts from San Francisco. Bender played a crucial role in helping Adams create his first portfolio in a new artistic style, titled Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras. This collection featured his iconic photograph Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, captured using his Korona view camera with glass plates and a dark red filter to enhance the tonal contrasts. During that trip, Adams had only one plate remaining, and he imagined the effect of a darkened sky before using his last shot. He later reflected, “I was able to capture an image that represented not just how the subject looked, but how it felt to me and how it would appear in the final print.” One biographer describes Monolith as Adams’s most important photograph, noting that its “extreme manipulation of tonal values” marked a significant shift from earlier photography. Adams’s idea of visualization, which he first articulated in writing in 1934, became a fundamental aspect of his photographic approach.

Other work

Between 1929 and 1942, Adams’s artistic style evolved significantly, and he gained recognition in the art world. The 1930s were especially innovative and fruitful for him. He broadened the techniques he used, focusing on intricate close-ups as well as grand landscapes, ranging from mountains to industrial sites. Bender introduced Adams to Taos, New Mexico, where he formed friendships with notable figures like poet Robinson Jeffers, artists John Marin and Georgia O’Keeffe, and photographer Paul Strand. His lively personality and impressive piano skills made him a favourite among his fellow artists. In 1930, he published his first book, Taos Pueblo, which featured text by writer Mary Hunter Austin.

Kings Canyon

Ansel Adams is recognized as one of the most important conservationists in America. While his stunning photographs played a key role in persuading people to safeguard the country’s natural wonders, he didn’t just rely on his images to make an impact. Adams actively campaigned for conservation initiatives. One of his greatest achievements was helping to establish Kings Canyon National Park. Kings Canyon, shaped by glaciers in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, is located right next to the famous Sequoia National Park, which was created in the 1890s to protect the massive redwoods from being cut down. Despite its breath-taking scenery and close location to Sequoia, Kings Canyon was still unprotected until the 1930s. By 1936, the future of this natural marvel was at risk.

His presidential medal

He eventually got a contract with the United States Department of the Interior to take pictures of national parks. Because of his efforts and dedication to promoting these parks, which contributed to the growth of the National Park system, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.

Visualisation in photography

Visualization is all about imagining a scene and figuring out the best shot before actually taking the picture. As Ansel Adams often mentioned, it happens in what he called the ‘mind’s eye.’ This process means looking at a subject and instinctively picking out the key features that you want to focus on and showcase in your photo.

The zone system

The Zone System uses numbers from 0 to 10 to represent different levels of brightness. In this system, 0 stands for black, 5 is middle grey, and 10 is pure white. These brightness levels are referred to as zones. To help people easily tell these zones apart from other numbers, Adams and Archer chose to use Roman numerals instead of regular Arabic ones.

Image Analysis

Technical – The lighting in this photo is natural daylight with no artificial light. The aperture was high, something like f/22 as its a landscape photo with almost everything in focus. The shutter speed was likely to be something like 5 seconds, this is to counteract the high f stop. The ISO was likely 100 or 200 to keep the amount of noise down.

Visual – There is a lot of tone within this photo, especially the background with the snow, and likely all the numbers on the zone system have been used in this photograph. The mountains in the background create a sense of depth and add some texture to the image, especially with the snow on them. The mountains also create a good, almost symmetrical pattern as they run all the way across the image.

Contextual – “This is one of his most critically acclaimed works, exemplifying Adams’ ability to capture the rich nuance of the environment around him,” Mackay says. The picture was captured for the national parks project, started by the Department of the Interior.

Conceptual – The department had to pull back on funding when the US joined World War Two. However, Adams was motivated by the stunning beauty of the parks and a strong wish to raise awareness about their protection. In 1946 and 1948, he managed to secure two Guggenheim Foundation grants, which allowed him to keep photographing national parks all over the country.

Photoshoot plan

Where – Jersey- around the coast and sea.

What – The cliffs or sea near the lighthouse.

Who – There will be no one in my photos.

When – Late afternoon to sunset.

Contact sheet

Selection process

My best photos

Basic editing

I have done some general edits to improve my images

My best photos edited

Black and white

I edited my photos into black and white to closer relate them to Ansel Adams.

Composition Experiments

My favourite

Art steps

My second photoshoot

Selection process

My favourite photos

Basic edits

Edited photos

Black and white

Creative editing

I used the HDR setting in Lightroom and played around with the ‘Preview for SDR display’ setting to further bring out detail within the image.

Finally, I added some Vignette to draw the views eyes towards the centre point of the image.

Composition experiments

My final photo presentation

Art steps

Evaluation

This was a successful photoshoot in my opinion, my photos managed to relate to Ansel Adams photos, however I took my own turn with the photos as they all are not in black and white. To improve my photoshoot next time I would have gone on a day with clouds to create a sense of depth within the sky and background. This would also help to remove some of the harsh sunlight I had to work around during the editing.

What Is Exposure Compensation?

Will help you override the automatic exposure adjustments your camera makes in situations with uneven light distribution, filters, non-standard processing, or underexposure or overexposure.

AEB

On many digital cameras, as well as a few drones, will include an Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) option. AEB is very useful for getting high contrast scenes for HDR. When AEB is selected, the camera will automatically take three or more shots, each at a different exposure.

AEB is like having an automatic version of exposure compensation that gives you a number of variations to choose from.

What Is Exposure Bracketing?

It helps you take exactly the same picture of your subject at several different exposure, eg +1,0 and -1. Means that you take two more pictures: one that is slightly under-exposed (usually by dialling in a negative exposure compensation, say -1/3EV), and the second one that is slightly over-exposed (usually by dialling in a positive exposure compensation, say +1/3EV). 

What are HDR Photos?

HDR (High Dynamic Range) HDR photography is a technique where (Multiple Bracketed Images) are merged together to make a single beautifully exposed photograph with a full dynamic range of tones from the very dark to the very brightest.

A camera can only really capture a limited amount of light and darks.

My Attempt

My HDR Image

My HDR Images Attempt

Before

After

With An Vignette

Ansel 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 for pure photography which favoured sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph. He was born in San Francisco four years before the great earthquake of 1906 where he spent his childhood days playing in the sand dunes. This is how he gained an appreciation for nature which would become his primary source of photographic inspiration.

Ansel Adams was deeply inspired by Yosemite National Park with his visits here playing a pivotal role in sparking his interest in photography and ultimately shaping his career. During his time at Yosemite, Adams was captivated by the park’s majestic landscapes, particularly its dramatic granite cliffs and towering waterfalls. He also became interested in the art of visual composition and how light and shadow played on the natural forms of the landscape. His work in Yosemite also led him to become a prominent advocate for the conservation of national parks, working with organizations like the Sierra Club to promote environmental protection when in 1927 he was named Sierra Club’s official trip photographer.

Ansel Adams’ ’The Tetons and the Snake River’ is one of his most iconic photographs, demonstrating his mastery of landscape photography and his dedication to environmental preservation. Adams used a large-format 8×10 camera to take this photo which allowed for remarkable sharpness and tonal range. Developed by Adams and Fred Archer, the Zone System allowed for precise control over exposure and contrast which can be seen in the final photo. A deep depth of field keeps all elements sharp, from the foreground river to the distant mountains. The photograph displays a dramatic contrast between the bright sky and the dark river, achieved through red filters that darkened the blue sky. In terms of composition and framing, the winding river creates a strong leading line, guiding the viewer’s eye toward the rugged peaks of the Tetons. The dramatic interplay of light and shadow enhances the textures of the mountains and river therefore creating a sense of depth while the absence of colour draws attention to textures and tonal gradations; reinforcing the timelessness of the scene. The curve of the river adds dynamism while the mountains act as a stable backdrop with the high vantage point, allowing for a sweeping view to emphasise the vastness of the landscape. Taken in 1942, the photograph was part of Adams’ work for the Department of the Interior; documenting national parks. Adams was an advocate for nature conservation and his work played a crucial role in promoting the preservation of America’s landscapes. The image embodies the untamed beauty of the American West, reinforcing themes of wilderness and national identity. The photograph captures the sublime; a Romantic notion of nature which evokes a spiritual connection. Unlike many landscape photos of this era, there is no human presence seen. The river may symbolize the passage of time and the relationship between land and water. The scene overall suggests the importance of preserving such landscapes for future generations.

Ansel Adams was a dedicated artist-activist, playing a role in the growth of an environmental consciousness in America and the development of a citizen environmental movement with him even being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. Adams first used his photographs for environmental purposes in the 1930s, especially with his work in Kings Canyon National Park. Kings Canyon was at risk primarily due to the threat of development and commercial exploitation during the early 20th century. One of the most significant early uses of his images for conservation was when they were featured in a Sierra Club report aimed at gaining national park status for the newly proposed Kings Canyon National Park in California.

Ansel Adams was all about visualisation in his photography which referred to the entire emotional and mental process of creating a photograph which Adam’s considers to be one of the most important concepts in photography. It is to visualize an image, in whole or in part, to see it clearly in the mind prior to exposure; a continuous projection from composing the image through the final print. Visualization is more accurately viewed as an attitude toward photography. He also formulated the Zone System which is a photographic technique used for determining optimal film exposure and development, allowing photographers to capture the entire tonal scale in their photographs from featuring areas presenting the brightest whites to the deepest greys.

The initial proposal to create Kings Canyon National Park was denied because of political and economic interests that conflicted with the idea of preserving the area. However, the proposal was eventually approved in 1940 due to the increased public support and awareness, Ansel Adams’ photography and America’s general political shift. The creation of the park was a victory for environmentalists and it ensured that the area’s unique landscape would be protected from exploitation. It also marked the increasing importance of national parks as a means of preserving the nation’s natural heritage for future generations.

Exposure compensation basically helps you override automatic exposure adjustments your camera makes in situations with uneven light distribution, filters, non-standard processing, or underexposure or overexposure. It lets you take control of your image’s brightness by manually increasing or decreasing exposure.

how to take –

Start with 1 stop variations. So, take a shot at -1 on the exposure compensation dial, then turn the dial so it reads -2 and then -3. Repeat, this time overexposing at +1, +2, and +3. You may not use all these images in the final HDR but it’s good to have the data just in case

Exposure bracketing is a photographic technique where multiple shots of the same scene are taken at different exposure settings to capture the full tonal range and merge them during post-processing

how to take –

In the menu, select the second tab and go to ‘Expo. Comp. /AEB

Use the dial on the top of the camera to set the range of exposure you want to capture with your 2nd and 3rd photo

After you have set the exposure range, you will see two extra marks on the exposure metre

Now take 3 photos and your camera will automatically change the exposure for each one.

TIP: You can also set the camera to continuous shooting, to take 3 photos in close succession – all you need to do is hold the shutter button down.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, which refers to the amount of contrast between the darkest and the lightest areas of a photograph. Most regular cameras struggle to balance photos where there is a high contrast between dark and light areas.

how to edit into –

 Open your photos in Lightroom Classic, highlight the 3 images you want to merge

Go to the top and click Photo>Photo Merge>HDR

If you’re happy with the preview, click merge

my own examples –

final image from these images – this used the merge method –

also used some of my photos that I took out of school –

with this u can see that the first photo is when its been edited using HDR on Lightroom and the one below is without.

which I also added a preset called dark drama to edit the sky and to enhance the drama within the image

merge method using better photo –