I know this is an old thread, but I just saw the big AA exhibit in San Francisco and there were a couple of small prints from 1927 he printed on Dassonville Carbon Black paper.
Were those the ones that were printed on a textured paper?
The texture was very noticeable on 1 and a little less noticeable on the 2d. nworth gives the formula for Dassonville D-1 Charcoal Black Paper Developer in the post above and the Cookbook classifies it as a "neutral-tone developer." I wonder what effect it would have on modern papers?
Another image that caught my eye was the maroon tinted Clearing Winter Storm, 1937, which I found visually impressive but was surprised that selenium was responsible for the maroon tone.
I know this is an old thread, but I just saw the big AA exhibit in San Francisco and there were a couple of small prints from 1927 he printed on Dassonville Carbon Black paper. The blacks were medium to dark grey and the whites were light, light grey. Just a few years later, his prints took on his signature black blacks and white whites. I am not sure what happened in the intervening few years which could explain the remarkable difference in print quality. New papers? New developers? Improved technique? All of the above?
To gain acceptance as an artist, Adams infused his early work with romantic touches reminiscent of the popular charcoal drawings of the day, a technique that’s evident in 1925’s “El Capitan, Yosemite Valley.”
“Unlike Adams’ later photographs, this one is more traditional in its composition,” Muente says. “It has a soft focus with blurred lines and edges. The reflection of the trees in the river makes it look like a 19th-century landscape painting.”
By 1932, Adams had become friends with Edward Weston, a pioneer in black-and-white photography characterized by sharp focus and rich detail, and the duo, along with five other photographers, founded Group f/64.
I think this was a conscious evolution in style. I'm not near any books of/about Adams at the moment, but IIRC his early style is more like what we now call pictorialist and only after some time does he develop the "mature style" now most associated with him. Or, one might say that what happened was not that he changed papers or developers, but that he met Edward Weston. For an article about a relevant exhibition, see https://www.ohiomagazine.com/arts/article/ansel-adams-a-photographer-s-evolution-in-cincinnati
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