Ansel Adams skies are cheap shots.

jtk · Feb 8, 2018

"Cheap shot" is a figure of speech in your part of the world. Could have said "lazy" photo.

I'm not a huge Ansel Adams fan...but his work offers a lot more than #25 filter or polarizer.

Does it seem to you that a high percentage of "landscape"/"scenic" photos offer little more than clouds?

Sirius Glass · Feb 8, 2018

In a word?

NO

My work is much better than that.

Ko.Fe. · Feb 8, 2018

Clouds are often fascinated landscape by itself.

To me it seems what high percentage of "landscape"/"scenic" photos offer little. Next to nothing. They are for garbage bin.
But Ansel Adams landscapes are to be seen on page of approved by publishing rights holders book. At least. Maybe I should look at "high percentage" same way. Not just on the screen .

wyofilm · Feb 8, 2018

Clouds have always been big parts of landscape photographs. Some landscape photographers had stock negs that they would use in composite prints for when the skies weren't right.

Today, most manipulations of clouds seem overly dramatized to me, either with filters, especially with gradient ND filters or excessive burning in. It is as if every day the end of world storm was rolling in ...

jim10219 · Feb 8, 2018

A good photo is a good photo, regardless of it's cloud content. A bad photo is a bad photo, regardless of it's cloud content. Clouds ain't got nuttin' to do wit it.

Alan9940 · Feb 8, 2018

Clouds can play an integral part in the composition of landscape photos; their relationship to elements on the ground, shadows created, their tonality, lines created by their shapes, etc. Personally, I don't like cloudless grand landscapes. We photographers shooting out here in the desert southwest often refer to the weather as, "Chance of severe clear!" In other words, not good. But, I think jim10219 said it best.

Patrick Robert James · Feb 8, 2018

jim10219 said:
A good photo is a good photo, regardless of it's cloud content. A bad photo is a bad photo, regardless of it's cloud content. Clouds ain't got nuttin' to do wit it.

Yup.

cliveh · Feb 8, 2018

voceumana · Feb 8, 2018

Ansel Adams tended to print his photographs in a more dramatic way as he got older--he said so himself. I personally prefer his earlier printings, and some of his quieter images regardless of the subject (landscapes or not). In all cases, his work never seems like "cheap shots" to me nor a lazy approach to photography.

If you have not seen his original photographs but only reproductions, then you cannot fully appreciate is work. This is likely true for all photographers.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 8, 2018

It all depends on whether the sky is a primary or secondary element of a scene. If the sky is secondary then you don't want it distracting the viewer.

ic-racer · Feb 8, 2018

I'm more disappointed by those photographers that offer little more than details of the Earth's surface.

macfred · Feb 8, 2018

Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) did a great series with clouds - Equivalent (Series), 1925-1931:
http://www.phillipscollection.org/research/american_art/artwork/Stieglitz-Equivalent_Series1.htm

pentaxuser · Feb 8, 2018

jtk said:
"Cheap shot" is a figure of speech in your part of the world. Could have said "lazy" photo.

I had always thought the phrase "cheap shot" was already a figure of speech that originated in the same part of the world that you are located in. It may be that English is not your first language and American phraseology is not mine but I think that "cheap" as in cheap shot is not related to value but more to something which is unfair and unkind as opposed to "easy" or lazy such as in "lacking in application" to which you allude.

pentaxuser

Alan Johnson · Feb 8, 2018

I too don't understand the OP but find that good clouds improve landscapes. particularly where the land is flat, for example, Don McCullin:
http://ingridnewton4.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/open-skies.html

Sirius Glass · Feb 8, 2018

The OP is not part of my world so I do not have his problems. When I take a photograph in color I decide if I will use the haze filter or a polarizer. When I take a photograph in black & white I decide if I will use the haze filter, a polarizer, yellow filter, orange filter or a red filter. My decision is based on whether or not the clouds and sky add to the composition or not.

Eric Rose · Feb 8, 2018

troll

Chris Johnson · Feb 8, 2018

Clyde's work, to me, shows excellent use of clouds.

MattKing · Feb 8, 2018

What have you got against clouds?

No filters involved, but they were printed judiciously.

megzdad81 · Feb 9, 2018

I favor the one on the left Matt. The clouds lighten my spirit, just like they do in the real. I have great difficulty shooting at all without some structure in the sky.

removed account4 · Feb 9, 2018

kerry thallman had a whole series of lenticular coud photographs
on his website ( or a different one ) absolutely beautiful!
usually in landscape work the clouds steal the show, unless it is
old, then the blank sky steals the show...

pentaxuser · Feb 9, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
The OP is not part of my world so I do not have his problems. .

Well he lives in New Mexico which I would have thought is part of your world in terms of figures of speech and a lot of the time I'd imagine his skies in New Mexico are pretty much the same as yours in Southern California.

Mind you things may vary quite a lot in what we Brits regard as the same hot, arid corner of the U.S. I recall Sam McCloud came from New Mexico, like the OP and he was always at pains to correct those who introduced him as being from Arizona

pentaxuser

Sirius Glass · Feb 9, 2018

pentaxuser said:
Well he lives in New Mexico which I would have thought is part of your world in terms of figures of speech and a lot of the time I'd imagine his skies in New Mexico are pretty much the same as yours in Southern California.

Mind you things may vary quite a lot in what we Brits regard as the same hot, arid corner of the U.S. I recall Sam McCloud came from New Mexico, like the OP and he was always at pains to correct those who introduced him as being from Arizona

pentaxuser

The OPs problem is not clouds in the sky, it is clouds in his ideas and concepts.

pentaxuser · Feb 9, 2018

Thank you, Sirius, for the explanation. If I were to start this kind of "AA's Clouds" discussion or indeed any discussion it would be to interact with other posters and yet the OP hasn't interacted once. Most strange.

pentaxuser

btaylor · Feb 9, 2018

Actually, pentaxuser, the skies in New Mexico are far more dramatic than here in Southern California where we currently have mostly cloudless, relentlessly clear blue skies and no rain!

Wayne · Feb 9, 2018

btaylor said:
Actually, pentaxuser, the skies in New Mexico are far more dramatic than here in Southern California where we currently have mostly cloudless, relentlessly clear blue skies and no rain!

zactly true

Ansel Adams skies are cheap shots.

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency