Ansel Adams skies are cheap shots.

[tezzasmall]

What have you got against clouds?

View attachment 195149 View attachment 195150

No filters involved, but they were printed judiciously.

Lovely set of clouds / skies on both prints Matt.

For me, if I cover them up, the end results seem like 'unfinished' pictures.

Terry S

 

[jeffreyg]

No one has mentioned Alfred Stieglitz's series Equivalents series. (until now )

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

 

[tezzasmall]

No one has mentioned Alfred Stieglitz's series Equivalents series. (until now )

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

Post 12 mentioned him! :

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

Terry S

 

[Cholentpot]

Don't really care. I shoot for me and me first. If I got some nice and fully clouds that I feel great about Yay Me!

Photo that's been done a million times before? Don't care, Yay Me! I did it! Cheating in photoshop? Eh, it looks better, Yay! Stack a bunch of filters and use a DSLR to test out shot beforehand? Why not! Works for me!

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Clouds add to a composition if well-used. No red filter involved here:

 

[Sirius Glass]

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

Yep

 

[Pioneer]

I enjoy taking photographs of the scenery in my part of the country.

In most parts of the world clouds are often part of the scenery that people enjoy looking at.

If they are in the sky then I usually get pictures that include clouds as part of the scenery.

If they are not there then I get pictures of the scenery that do not include clouds.

I usually prefer the scenery pictures with clouds, but not always. Some of my scenery pictures in the desert where I live are not dramatic enough to compete with clouds.

As for AA, I have often considered much of his work was produced for his friends in the Sierra Club. Particularly his early work in the Sierra and in Yosemite. Therefore it made sense to dramatize nature and he did a pretty good job of doing that. Later on that had become his signature so he continued producing and printing very dramatic work. Like others I do prefer his earlier prints to many of his later ones.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Skies?

Whiteface Mountain (yes that one) can be a study regarding clouds. From the south view, (prevailing winds from the west) there is usually some fine cloud cap/cover on or near the top. Winter, Fall, Spring, and sometimes Summer, it gives some excellent views.

 

[Vaughn]

A blank sky can say as much if not more about a place than unusual sky conditions (clouds, etc). But going thru my images I notice that 98% of my printed images do not have any sky in them.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I do not add clouds. I do not remove clouds. At the end of the 19th century and early 20th century there was a photographer [I forgot the unworthy's name] who removed tails from hunting dogs on the prints. The original and tailless prints were displayed at the Getty Museum. The original with the tails was better. I am sure the dogs were happier with their tails.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

I do not add clouds. I do not remove clouds. At the end of the 19th century and early 20th century there was a photographer [I forgot the unworthy's name] who removed tails from hunting dogs on the prints. The original and tailless prints were displayed at the Getty Museum. The original with the tails was better. I am sure the dogs were happier with their tails.

Are you losing your mind?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Are you losing your mind?

No. Is yours still intact? I do not remove or add objects after the photograph is taken. If I do not want something in the photograph I change the composition. [Still having problems following? <<wink>> <<wink>>

 

[pentaxuser]

You mean the dogs' tails were cut off! That's terrible. I expect DT to make this practice top of his "To Stop" list. Yes, even more important than his Wall from San Diego to Brownsville which I fully realise may have to be high enough in New Mexico to spoil the cloud scenes there.

pentaxuser

 

[jtk]

A blank sky can say as much if not more about a place than unusual sky conditions (clouds, etc). But going thru my images I notice that 98% of my printed images do not have any sky in them.

Vaughn, your "98% of my printed images" is an interesting discovery. Me too.

However, I've found that some B&W images have enough happening graphically/tonally/whatever that they benefit by printing in negative version: sky as pitch black. Easy enough to do technically, whether film or digital... Not hard to previsualize, Ansel-style.

 

[Vaughn]

For example? Actually -- it looks better inverted and upside down...

 

[awty]

Mr Adams would of made a great pictorialist.

 

[removed account4]

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 ...

the did this all the time, especially with non panchromatic emulsions since something like a paper negative would easily give a blank sky, there was also a tradition of not only dropping in a sky
but for the major post card companies that did turn of the century views they dropped in women in bustles with babies in a stroller, and sometimes off in the distance a smokestack / factory ( "progress" )
karsh always added and subtracted with his portraits, adams did with exposure and printing .. its a medium to be manipulated ..

 

[cliveh]

This guy was pretty manipulative with his skies.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/gustave-le-grey-exhibition/

 

[jtk]

For example? Actually -- it looks better inverted and upside down...

Admirable images, either way

 

[E. von Hoegh]

No. Is yours still intact? I do not remove or add objects after the photograph is taken. If I do not want something in the photograph I change the composition. [Still having problems following? <<wink>> <<wink>>

So far yes, as intact as it has always been. But, how could the dogs know they had been rendered incaudate?? Did they see the prints?

 

[esearing]

Maybe the OP just needs a more artistic state of mind when capturing or viewing landscapes with clouds.

Rows and flows of angel hair , And ice cream castles in the air , And feather canyons everywhere , I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun, They rain and snow on everyone, So many things I would have done , But clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now, From up and down and still somehow, It's cloud's illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all.
-- Joni Mitchell

 

[darkosaric]

Skies and clouds are even more pronounced in many Sebastiao Salgado's work, he even once talked about the importance of that in one interview. Much more pronounced than in AA pictures.

 

[Arklatexian]

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 and where I live often have similar skies, white/grey, but for different reasons. Where he lives, there is smog. Where I live there is high humidity. The only filter that works here in B&W or color is a polarizer. When I have been in Northern New Mexico, the air is usually dry, the sky is blue and if there are any, clouds. Glorius clouds that this flatlander always enjoys and, cheap shot or not, will photograph as many times as I can. Most AA pictures with clouds would look downright "sterile" without them......Regards!

 

[jtk]

In NM we do have spectacular clouds sometimes...right now the sky is essentially flat. Many here enjoy using graduated neutral density filters to darken sky from the top, but a certain famous software does that brilliantly without forcing fiddling with polarizers or making it hard to shoot hand-held in low light.

 

[Vaughn]

...Most AA pictures with clouds would look downright "sterile" without them......Regards!

And not surprisingly, assuming AA framed the scene with the weight and form of the cloulds as a major consideration. It would be like stripping the clouds out of this: