who – 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

childhood – As a young child, Adams was injured in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, when an aftershock threw him into a garden wall. His broken nose was never properly set, remaining crooked for the rest of his life.

Adams was a hyperactive and sickly child with few friends. Dismissed from several schools for bad behaviour, he was educated by private tutors and members of his family from the age of 12. Adams taught himself the piano, which would become his early passion.

park that inspired his photography career – Yosemite National Park

how -to cut out any trace of human activity, evoking untouched wilderness. 

sierra club – a powerful national organization that lobbied to create national parks and protect the environment from destructive development projects, which is one of the oldest environmental preservation societies. in 1927, Adams got the break that changed his life forever when he was named the sierra clubs official photographer.

other then landscape photography – Rather, in his later life, he spent most of his energy as a photographer on reinterpreting his earlier work and on editing books of his own work. an environmentalist

Kings Canyon – formed by glaciers in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, it sits immediately to the north of world-famous Sequoia National Park, founded in the 1890s to protect the giant redwoods from logging interests. But in spite of its stunning natural beauty and its proximity to Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon itself remained unprotected into the 1930s

But convincing Congress, thousands of miles away in Washington, to protect the High Sierra would be no easy task. – The Sierra Club entrusted the job to Ansel Adams, one of their most prominent members. He was not only familiar with the Canyon, he had photographed it extensively. Over the course of the fight to preserve Kings Canyon, Ansel lugged his portfolios from the Senate to the House and back, eventually meeting with over 40 members of Congress. Of course, the photographs themselves were stunning. But equally compelling were Ansel’s personal stories of hiking the John Muir trail—how his experiences in the High Sierra led him to devote his life to photographing + preserving America’s natural heritage.

Though the bill to create the park failed in 1936, Ansel’s fight was not done. In 1938, he published his Kings Canyon images as a book, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail. The large photoengraved images, – of Kings Canyon’s soaring peaks, sunlit cliffs, and stoic sequoias. Were trimmed and individually glued onto the pages. So exquisitely were they reproduced that they have, in the years since, often been mistaken for actual photographic prints.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour, for “his efforts to preserve this country’s wild and scenic areas, both on film and on earth.

Visualisation is the concept of interpreting a scene and deciding on the final shot before pressing the shutter. Taking place within the ‘mind’s eye’, as Adams often said, visualisation involves intuitively assessing a subject and choosing the most important attributes to frame and highlight.

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.

analyses –

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. – when and where photos was taken

visual – this photo has high contrast and tonal ranges, which make its seem more dramatic. to do this he used a red filter to darken the sky, which made the rock face appear more striking. the deep back and bright highlights enhance the depth + scale. which the contrast emphasizes the rugged texture of the rock + its interplay with light.

technical – within this photo he used a Panchromatic glass plate negative which captures a broad range of tones, which is important for high-contrast images. this image has likely been taken by a small aperture for a deep depth of field, also with long exposure to capture small details, this ensure clarity and sharpness throughout the image.

conceptional – with in this photo he manipulated the scene using a red filter to darken the sky and enhance contrast, this shows that its not just a photo capturing reality, its more so an artistic interpretation.

contextual -this photo was taken in 1927, this was when photography was still evolving as a fine art medium, which shows that Adam was a part of the movement to make photography go past just taking a photo of reality and instead becoming a part of fine art.

Ansel Adams was born in 1902 and died in 1984, he was a famous photographer, he was famous for his black-and-white landscape photos. He mastered lighting techniques and perfected exposure.

Ansel was born in San Francisco, California, in 1902, but he spent a lot of his time in Yosemite National Park, which deeply influenced his photography and love for nature, Yosemite national park was one of his driving factors to wanting to become a photographer.

California’s “Yosemite National Park”

The Zone Chart

Ansel created a chart called “the zone chart” it is used to help control exposure and also contrast, photographers even nowadays still use it to help visualize and adjust exposure to get the right details in the highlights and shadows.

The system has 11 segments with 0 being the darkest and 10 (X) being the brightest.

All of Ansel Adams photos are taken in black and white, this means that you can apply the zone system to all of his photos, here a few of his famous photos.

Aspens 1958 analysis

Ansel Adams is a landscape photographer and environmentalist, grew up amid the sand dunes of the golden gate. He takes photos of cliffs and vast open landscapes. When he was young the aftershock of an earthquake broke his nose. He took a big majority of his famous photos in the ‘John Muir Trail’. He grew recognition as a photographer in the 1930s, due to his beautiful photos and sheer commitment to the profession. He is now a world famous photographer who many say is one of the greats. He died on the 22nd of April, 1984.

Adams, along with Fred Archer, developed what is known as the zone system. The zone system is a method of relating and controlling exposure to the film, and development. This technique is copied very often, but not many people have mastered it.

F/64 was a group of west coast photographers including Ansel Adams. The group was founded in 1932. The name refers to the aperture in the camera being very small which made a very deep depth of field and the highest possible sharpness in the photos – the name relates to the groups philosophy. The group advocated for what they called “straight photography” which was pretty much photos which the deepest depth of field, the sharpest possible, a very rich tonal range and a sharp focus – without manipulation. The group was aiming to create a movement away from pictorialism. Pictorialism was the soft, painting style photography that was used by many early 20th century photographers. As a group they generally focused on natural landscapes, using national parks to achieve this (Yosemite etc).

Ansel Adams took photos because he wanted to capture what he saw. Originally, he took photos documenting his travels and his expeditions but he thought they lacked the soul and the power that he really saw in the scene. He developed a technique called visualisation to capture what his minds eye saw. The first time he did this, he used a strong red filter to darken the sky and create an unprecedented mood and atmosphere in his images. Photos with this much tonal range and such deliberate exposure had never been seen before.

I personally love his photography, it is inspiring and makes me feel small seeing the vast landscapes filled with huge mountains and wide, running rivers. The contrast is amazing, and the focal points really stand out. His photos have inspired me to look at the Jersey cliffs and think about how I can make my photos look like his, in regards of contrast, lighting and the vastness of his scenes. His photos often mainly consist of dark tones, often silhouettes, and it makes the scene look powerful, like there could likely be a thunderstorm, although it was likely sunny. Often the only midtones visible in his photos are in the sky. To conclude, his work really stands out to me.

Image Analysis

This is a film photo of a wide river leaving to a tall, snowy mountain range. The genre of this style of photography is landscape. The mise-en-scene presents the sky, filled with dark, dense and contrasting clouds sitting above some snowy mountains. The mountains are often a solid black, perfectly contrasting the snow. Below this, is a river that leads to the mountains. The colour/tone in this image very dark and ominous. For example, if you look at the base of the mountains, or the trees to left of the image, there is hardly any texture visible. However, contrasting this is the river and the sky, which both have mid and light tones to oppose the extremely dark tones of the rest of the image, and stand out. The photographer (Ansel Adams), has clearly used leading lines, which you can see: the river clearly snakes up to the mountain range. The mountain range’s edges also lead up to the highest peak. The use of light in this image is quite varied ranging from dark, to mid, to light. I have circled the most extremes of these points of light. The depth of field is very deep, the whole image is in focus.

This image using lighting with a very high amount of contrast – very deep blacks and very bright whites; the photo has a very big tonal range. The deep blacks present in the mountains provide strong negative space that almost frames the moon and the lit part of the image. The aperture was likely very high like f/22 because of the very wide depth of field. I would believe that Ansel Adams used his visualisation technique and zone system in order to achieve the high contrast and deep blacks – he probably used a colour filter. The ASA was definitely as low as possible to minimise grain, but since it was film it was likely quite tricky to decide which roll to bring on the trip – or he brought lots of rolls and decided for each shot. The amount of texture is astoundingly high because of the high levels of contrast he managed to achieve. There are lots of harsh lines in the image – like the cliff to the left that is solid black contrasts very solidly against the sky and the other quite bright cliff.

He probably wanted to capture the image with quite an air of mystery – the cliff on the left and the shadows on the right almost shroud the cliff in the middle and the moon. He probably felt a sense of awe and tried his best to capture that – capturing the size of the cliff and the detail on the moon. This was likely one of the first photographs that was thought out so clearly and captured so deliberately.

Exposure Bracketing

Exposure bracketing is a method of taking photos where you take three photos of the same scene. You use three different levels of exposure

• Underexposed
• Correctly exposed
• Overexposed

This method allows for a very high dynamic range as you merge the three images and the part of each image that is best exposed will be the most prominent in the image. This method is normally how vivid, perfectly exposed images are created.

Some modern digital cameras have AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing). This feature basically does it all for you, taking three photos with different levels of exposure. Its usually a setting that you have to turn on.

Who is Ansel Adams?

Ansel Adams Photography

Ansel Adams’s photography style its sharp focus, exceptional detail, and dramatic use of light and shadow. He wanted to capture the grandeur and beauty of the natural world, emphasising the importance of preserving these pristine landscapes.

• Adams Primarily used large format cameras, such as the 8×10 inch view camera, which allowed him to capture the amount of detail he wanted .
• Beside photographer Fred Archer, Adams created the Zone system, which was a method of achieving precise control over exposure and development in order to refine image quality.
• Adams believed in the importance of pre- visualizing the final image before taking a photograph, adjusting things such as composition, lighting, and exposure to create a the outcome he wanted.
• With his photography , Adams shared a greater appreciation for the natural world and to promote importance of preserving our environment.

The zone system

Ansel Adams created the Zone system with Fred Archer around 1940, which teaches how to achieve the optimal exposure on the prints. His method was based on exposing the film in such a manner as to capture the darkest areas of the scene to avoid complete underexposed blacks. Then in the dark room, he proceeded to time the development so the highlights wouldn’t turn to complete white.

Image analysis

This image captures the Moon rising over a small Mexican town. In this image the top part over the moon is very dark and about 25% of this image is pure dark grey however it works really well, In the centre of the image there is The mood which even being one of the smallest things in this image its one of the most important so important that the tittle is Moonrise over Hernandez. The clouds are still very bright which makes me think that this image wasn’t taken at night but instead in late afternoon. The interesting thing about this image is the details that it has, every detail of the Moon can be seen clearly as well as the windows on the houses, churchyard cross, every chimney. Ansel Adams used his 8″x10″ camera. Driving back to Santa Fe, New Mexico on Oct. 31, 1941, after what had been a disappointing day for picture-taking, photographer Ansel Adams stopped his car and yelled to his colleagues to bring him his tripod, exposure meter and other photographic equipment so that he could take what would become one of the most famous images in fine art photography, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico.

Exposure Bracketing is the process of taking multiple pictures in the same scene with different exposure levels, from really low exposure to really high exposure. You then would use those series of photos to blend and mix them together which in return should create a photo with a much higher dynamic range where it will give you all the details you will ever need.

Exposure Bracketing works very well with still images like landscapes which can help create a HDR Photo that will retain all the details in the images. Exposure Bracketing is not really useful in moving images as if you merge them to make a HDR Photo then you might see some weird effects and it wont be as effective.

Exposure Compensation

Exposure Compensation allows you to override the automatic exposure adjustments your camera makes in situation’s where light is either really bright, dark or uneven. It basically allows you to adjust the brightness of your image manually.

HDR

HDR or High Dynamic Range is a way to capture the lightest detail and darkest detail of a photo, you would typically use Exposure Bracketing to gain a series of high and low exposure photos which you could then merge together to make a HDR Photo.

How does HDR work?

It works by grabbing the details captured from the multiple photos taken in different exposures, for example lets say you take a picture that has some intense shadows and the bright blue sky. With a normal automatic exposure the camera would try to capture all the light and shadows but at the price of sacrificing detail and the amount of light in those certain areas. However by using multiple exposures with Exposure Bracketing it allows you to get the best detail of the sky with the low exposure image and the best detail of whatever is around or in the shadows in the high exposure image. You would then merge the low and high exposure photos together in a program (for example Lightroom) which would then take the best details out of the low exposure image and the best details out of the high exposure image and merge them together to make a HDR Photo with all the details and light being shown to its fullest potential.

My HDR Photos attempt

Before

After

We can see with the before image that the colours are lacking as well as details like the sky or water are quite overexposed due to it being too bright outside. But changing the image into a HDR Photo has helped to bring the water and sky back into the image and it has made it more detailed and viewable with the waves in the water now being viewable as well as the clouds in the sky which is also now viewable. it has also made the colours more vibrant however i did turn up the vibrancy a bit more to capture more detail in those bright colours.

Before

After

We can see with the before image that the sky was quite overexposed with half of the clouds being hidden, we can also see that some details around the rocks in the sea were quite dark. But by changing it into a HDR Photo we can now see that the rocks are more detailed and the clouds in the sky are fully viewable. I have also changed the vibrancy of the image and the saturation in order to brighten up the image and add more colour as well as to help bring more detail into the clouds and rocks at the bottom.

Before

After

We can see with the before image that the cliffs and the rocks at the bottom are quite dark, we can also see the grass and the plants lack colour and detail. We can also see the sky which appears to be overexposed with the clouds being barley visible. With the after image we can now see that the cliffs and rocks at the bottom have brightened up making the image have more detail and colour, we can also see that the plants now have more detail added as well with more colour which was achieved by adjusting the saturation and vibrancy of the image. The sky was also more visible with the after image and to make it stand out more I adjusted the haze to try and bring out as much detail as I could.

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) helps you get great shots in high-contrast situations. The iPhone camera takes several photos in rapid succession at different exposures and blends them together to bring more highlight and shadow detail to your photos.

Here are some photos i have taken using aeb

who is he?

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

childhood

When Adams was twelve he taught himself to play the piano and read music. Soon he was taking lessons, and the ardent pursuit of music became his substitute for formal schooling. For the next dozen years the piano was Adams’s primary occupation and, by 1920, his intended profession. Although he ultimately gave up music for photography, the piano brought substance, discipline, and structure to his frustrating and erratic youth. Moreover, the careful training and exacting craft required of a musician profoundly informed his visual artistry, as well as his influential writings and teachings on photography. Ansel Adams had problems fitting in at school. Some problems were due to a natural shyness and some were due to a physical issue (an “earthquake nose” as he called it – his nose was broken during an earthquake). It is also possible that he may have dealt with hyperactivity or dyslexia.

inspiration

For Adams, the environmental issues of particular importance were  Yosemite national park the national park system, and above all, the preservation of wilderness. He focused on what he termed the spiritual-emotional aspects of parks and wilderness and relentlessly resisted the Park Service’s “resorts,” which had led to the over development of the national parks and their domination by private concessionaires. 

sierra club

In 1919 he joined the Sierra Club and spent the first of four summers in  Yosemite valley, as “keeper” of the club’s LeConte Memorial Lodge. He became friends with many of the club’s leaders, who were founders of America’s nascent conservation movement. He met his wife, Virginia Best, in Yosemite; they were married in 1928. The couple had two children.

what else did he do

In 1940 he helped found the first curatorial department devoted to photography as an art form at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In 1946 he established at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) the first academic department to teach photography as a profession.

During the 1930s, Adams began to deploy his photographs in the cause of wilderness preservation.

Kings Canyon is among all national parks, at the highest risk from air pollution – they both have significant levels of concerns in all three air categories: Unhealthy Air, Hazy Skies and Harm to Nature.

Adams lobbied Congress for a Kings Canyon National Park, the Club’s priority issue in the 1930s, and created an impressive, limited-edition book, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail, which influenced both Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and President Franklin Roosevelt to embrace the Kings Canyon Park idea.

visualisation

The term visualization refers to the entire emotional-mental process of creating a photograph, and as such, it is one of the most important concepts in photography.” — Ansel Adams. I’ve become increasingly aware of the power of visualization over the years.

zone system

The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer.

Image analysis

technical:

by shooting black and white, he was able to enhance the dramatic shadows, and manipulate reality in a way, positioning the viewer closer to his envisioned image. . Ansel Adams made this image in 1938 during an outing with friends in the Yosemite backcountry with a 3″ x 4″ camera. he has clearly waited in this spot for a gap in the clouds to create the effect that he has achieved.

Visual:

the colour of this photo is in black and white, you can see the lighting reflect off the river. you can see the lines from the shadows of the trees in the distance reflecting on the river

contextual:

The image of “Cathedral Peak and Lake,” taken during the journey, perhaps best encapsulates the irony of the expedition. It’s a striking depiction of the danger and grandeur of the High Sierra, capturing the resolute Cathedral Peak standing proudly before a dark swell of gathering clouds

conceptual:

The story behind Ansel Adams’ “Cathedral Peak and Lake” brings us back to the long friendship formed between Ansel and renowned artist Georgia O’Keeffe. Perhaps no two artists have had a greater impact on the cultural imagination of America’s wilderness. Though Ansel’s medium was photography while O’Keeffe’s was painting, both, in their own way, captured the style, emotion, and drama of exploring the landscapes of America. It’s no surprise that they were not only great admirers of each other’s artistic works, but close friends and frequent companions.

The image of “Cathedral Peak and Lake,” taken during the journey, perhaps best encapsulates the irony of the expedition. It’s a striking depiction of the danger and grandeur of the High Sierra, capturing the resolute Cathedral Peak standing proudly before a dark swell of gathering clouds. The dark shadows that fall across the top of the peak, barren of even the scrubby pines that dot the lower reaches of the mountain, convey the ruggedness of climbing it, apparent even from across the icy lake.

what camera did he use?

Deardorf 8×10 View Camera 

experimentation – romanticism + sublime inspired

final images –

print layout –

virtual gallery –

Exposure Compensation

Exposure compensation allows photographers to override exposure settings picked by your camera’s light meter to darken or brighten images before they are captured. Since camera meters work by evaluating light reflected off subjects and are standardized on middle grey, any time a camera is pointed at something very dark the meter will work the opposite way by brightening up the exposure while a very bright subject will cause the meter to darken the exposure. This is done to get as close to the middle grey as possible so that the resulting image is not too dark or too bright. While this works out quite well in most cases, one might experience overexposure or underexposure in more challenging lighting conditions where the camera meter might be adjusting the exposure too aggressively. This is where exposure compensation comes into play, with the photographer manually taking control of the brightness of the image and overriding it using the exposure compensation feature of the camera.

HDR Photos

HDR is an abbreviation for High Dynamic Range. HDR photography is a technique that helps you get details in the brightest and darkest parts of your photographs; more so than if you took just one photograph with your camera. When photographers want to capture photos that exceed the capabilities of their cameras, they use the HDR photo process to capture the full dynamic range of images. By bringing different exposures together, you can make the most of every pixel so images more closely resemble what the human eye can perceive.

Exposure Bracketing

Exposure bracketing is where you take a sequence of photographs with different exposure levels and then blend them together to create a photograph with a much higher dynamic range. It gives you all the details you will ever need in your photographs so you can create the exact image you had in mind. Exposure bracketing is particularly useful in situations where the contrast between the brightest and darkest parts of the scene is too high for the camera’s sensor to capture in a single shot.  Common scenarios include landscape photography with bright skies and dark foregrounds. By capturing multiple exposures and blending them together or selecting the best shot, exposure bracketing helps you achieve optimal exposure and preserve details in both the highlights and shadows of the scene.

Trying the Technique