ANSEL ADAMS
Ansel Adams was born in California in 1902, where he lived in a house amongst the Golden Gate sand dunes. This perhaps influenced his love for nature and being outdoors as he spent a lot of his time going on long walks nearly every day. Despite having this love for being outdoors, Adams had taught himself to play the piano which became his main profession and something which it looked like he was going to undertake for the rest of his life.
It was not until 1916 where a trip to the Yosemite National Park when Adams became involved in photography. This would become a place where he spent a lot of time and also where much of his most famous work was taken. He was inspired by the beauty of the landscape and would frequently go on hikes over various terrain to become familiar with the park. Some of these hikes were with the Sierra club, which he joined in 1919, for who he would photograph their hikes. These images were published in their buletin and was the trigger for Ansel Adam's career in this field.
As he developed as a photographer, Adams generally used a large format camera in order to let a lot of light in and make the field of view much larger in order to capture the size of the landscape. He also used the tilts function on the cameras so that the images produced were sharp with a large depth of field, leading to detailed images of landscapes.
Adams places the horizon high in the frame so that the focus is on the landscape rather than the sky. This makes the landscape itself seem more imposing and gives the image large visual magnitude. The depth of the image is made to appear larger due to everything in the image being sharp and in focus.
It is a very realistic portrayal of the landscape, as opposed to a more abstract approach, which was something that Group f/64 aimed to do. Group f/64 was a group of eleven photographers, including Adams, Edward Weston and Alma Lavenson, who aimed to celebrate photography as a way of recording things as they appear, rather than disguising it. This is why the group called themselves f/64 as this is a very small aperture which provides a large depth of field for total sharpness and revealing everything in detail in its true form. This took the emphasis away from special lenses and techniques and more on the photographer themselves deciding how the image will turn out through position and framing.
It is this conscious formation of an image on the photographer's behalf is significant in Adam's practise and is what he called visualisation. This meant that he would deeply consider what he wanted the final image to look like before even attempting to take the photo.
“We must explore what lies before our eyes for its significance, substance, shape, texture, and the relationship of tonal values. We must teach our eyes to become more perceptive.”
This is allowed Adams to convey the emotions felt when looking across the beauty of the landscape to the viewer of the photographs as if they were there, making it a moving experience. To use the process of visualisation in my project, I will practise considering the angles of an image, as this can drastically alter how it is perceived, to convey the right tone that I want to. Also, it is important to consider lines and shapes, particularly as I am shooting in black and white as this strips the image back to this, and how they work within the frame. As I am considering experimenting with film, this will be important as there are only a limited amount of shots you can take so deeply considering how I want the image to look will mean that I do not take up valuable film.
I listened to, "The Lonely Palette Podcast - Episode 37: "The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942"" in order to hear a range of viewpoints on the image and see how other people interpret it to develop my understanding of the context and techniques which Adams worked in.
The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942
This image features a river which curves up and disappears into the mountains on the horizon. The sky has a range of highlights and shadows which suggest that a storm is coming, or has gone. It is this contrast between light and dark which gives the image depth so that it transcends from two dimensional into the three dimensional world. It is divided by this light with the lighter elements in the image like the water and clouds being contrasted with the darks of the rugged trees and the mountains. This highlights the tumultuous aspect of nature which can be tranquil and beautiful but also powerful and unforgiving.
Another thing which is notable about this photograph, is how deserted it looks with no sign of human intervention. It captures a time where nature was not commercialised and presents the untouched beauty of the National Parks. From a modern perspective, this raises the question of whether there is anywhere which could be considered unspoilt by human interference to some degree, which also gives the image an air of sadness to its beauty as nature in its purest form is something rarely seen today. This is an intriguing idea to me and I will look into whether there is anywhere considered untouched and to also document human interference on the land.
" You don't take a photograph, you make it"
Adams used post-production darkroom techniques to perfect his landscape images. He used dodging and burning to adjust the exposure in his images and create the image which he visualised. Dodging involves blocking light between the lens and the photographic paper which results in the area being lighter, due to it being reversed on the negative. Burning is the opposite of this in which extra exposure is given to the areas that need to be darkened on top of the original normal exposure. In digital photography, this can just be done on Photoshop so that highlights and shadows can be experimented within the image. This is something which I will look into within my own images to try and achieve a similar effect which Adams produces.
