Poor man's previsualization

DREW WILEY · Oct 27, 2022

Alan - Brett Weston didn't use the Zone System. He apparently didn't even use a light meter most of the time. But that was because he was so familiar with certain types of lighting from sheer experience that he was in effect his own light meter.

In terms of composition, very few people have the ability to turn large areas of black into meaningful abstract graphic elements in a photographic composition. Brett and a couple of his key younger followers did. People like his father Edward had fully black areas in their prints which simply didn't attract attention in the same manner because those areas were relatively small on contact-print scale. If one were to hypothetically enlarge those same EW negs, those same empty blacks areas would likely look pretty annoying and distracting. He saw things very differently from his own son.

All I'm really saying is that people need to develop their own compositional strategies. If something like the Zone System in its numerous flavors helps you in a practical sense, fine. If it hinders you, well, then, take a different direction. So any time there are die-cast procedural rules out there stating how something must be done to create a fine print, or how shadows must be rendered, well.... take your own path instead. What works visually, works.

eli griggs · Oct 27, 2022

BrianShaw said:
It’s not just number of prints. He printed the same negative differently at different points in his life. The variation of prints from the same negative can be quite profound.

Cheers.

Sirius Glass · Oct 27, 2022

eli griggs said:
I would be surprised if there were no Adam's prints near you.

He made so many (with assistants) that when he died, as I recall, that when the true number of each print was found out, some buyers became irate at what large amounts of money they had paid for his work.

I have seven Ansel Adams prints matted and framed.

Alan Edward Klein · Oct 27, 2022

Mike Lopez said:
Pray tell, how do I know what the "more important areas" of a picture are? Everything counts, and everything in the picture adds up to a whole. There are no degrees of importance. Again, we disagree on this. That's fine.

You say that you never said shadow areas don't count, but you've repeatedly said that they are "unimportant" (post #56), you've asked "does it matter" whether anyone can see detail in the shadows (post #70), and you've said "who cares," and asked whether "anyone cares." (Post #56 again). I think your own words have made your views clear enough, and now it's just semantics ("don't count" vs. "who cares," "they're unimportant," etc., etc.).

Thanks for your views. I'll let others decide what they think I meant.

Alan Edward Klein · Oct 27, 2022

DREW WILEY said:
Alan - Brett Weston didn't use the Zone System. He apparently didn't even use a light meter most of the time. But that was because he was so familiar with certain types of lighting from sheer experience that he was in effect his own light meter.

In terms of composition, very few people have the ability to turn large areas of black into meaningful abstract graphic elements in a photographic composition. Brett and a couple of his key younger followers did. People like his father Edward had fully black areas in their prints which simply didn't attract attention in the same manner because those areas were relatively small on contact-print scale. If one were to hypothetically enlarge those same EW negs, those same empty blacks areas would likely look pretty annoying and distracting. He saw things very differently from his own son.

All I'm really saying is that people need to develop their own compositional strategies. If something like the Zone System in its numerous flavors helps you in a practical sense, fine. If it hinders you, well, then, take a different direction. So any time there are die-cast procedural rules out there stating how something must be done to create a fine print, or how shadows must be rendered, well.... take your own path instead. What works visually, works.

Vive le difference.

Alan Edward Klein · Oct 27, 2022

Sirius Glass said:
I have seven Ansel Adams prints matted and framed.

How do the shadow areas look?

Sirius Glass · Oct 27, 2022

Alan Edward Klein said:
How do the shadow areas look?

Perfect. Any more detail would have been unrealistic and cluttered; any less detail would have made the print look flat or dark.

eli griggs · Oct 27, 2022

Alan Edward Klein said:
Ok then let's discuss Brett Weston's blacks. How does the Zone system figure in there when he's looking to get blacks and heighten contrast? Why do so many people get hung up on wanting to see details in shadow areas? (Note that digital photographers make just a big deal about it maybe more.)

My feeling is that work should be based on the aesthetic you want from it. Just because technology allows you to squeeze details out of shadow areas, doesn't mean that's what you ought to do. Otherwise, we're allowing technology to dictate art rather than our hearts and minds.

Having a starting point in purposeful control of your exposures is most often what enabled photographers to compose and select how they will take a photograph.

Having a 'regiment' of how you approach the photograph in front of you can then be, should be, that point of order or departure from which you realize your aesthetic, IMO.

Discipline counts and is key to photographic control, otherwise you're just taking 'snaps' in the darkness of ignorance.

MattKing · Oct 27, 2022

If the shadow detail isn't in the negative in the first place, when you make the print you won't be able to later make the decision as to whether or not that detail should be seen there.
I have certainly elected to burn in shadowed areas when printing, in order to de-emphasize detail and increase the "weight" of the print. I've also elected to lighten shadows by dodging, in order to decrease their weight and increase their transparency.
The same sort of things apply to highlights.
A well made negative tends to give you choice at the printing stage.
Much the same applies if you are scanning and post-processing the scan, for digital presentation.
If you are using transparency film and projecting it, you need to make those choices at the time of exposure.

DREW WILEY · Oct 27, 2022

How do the shadows look in AA's prints, Alan? Sirius can respond about his seven. But in terms of the considerable number I've seen in person close up - they're all over the map, shadow-wise depending. Interestingly, some of the same images known for their dramatic bold contrast ended up soft and poetic feeling in large scale prints. He even preached that. Why? Simply because many of his negatives didn't look good in large scale otherwise in his opinion. Certainly not many of his 8x10 originals were as crisp or as evenly processed as what most of us would routinely expect today. We've got more precise cameras and lenses, and more predictable, far less grainy films to choose from.

And for every one of those stereotypical high contrast images people associate with him, there is a far greater quantity with nuanced open, silvery shadow values. He wasn't a one-trick pony.

Dan Daniel · Oct 27, 2022

How do the shadows look? What week of what year, eh?

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/grant/ansel-adams-moonrise-hernandez-8-31-11.asp

And the collection at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. Look at the variations in the same image, again and again. Unfortunately they don't have actual printing dates...

CCP CollectionSpace | Center for Creative Photography

ccp-emuseum.catnet.arizona.edu

I'll repeat myself here with something Adams said (not a direct quote) The negative is the score and the print is the performance.

And an editorial comment by me- click tracks can destroy musical performance, suck the life right out of them. Tying creative work to technology and technique needs to be done carefully and without putting the cart before the horse, so to speak.

Sirius Glass · Oct 27, 2022

Dan Daniel said:
How do the shadows look? What week of what year, eh?

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/grant/ansel-adams-moonrise-hernandez-8-31-11.asp

And the collection at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. Look at the variations in the same image, again and again. Unfortunately they don't have actual printing dates...

CCP CollectionSpace | Center for Creative Photography

ccp-emuseum.catnet.arizona.edu

I'll repeat myself here with something Adams said (not a direct quote) The negative is the score and the print is the performance.

And an editorial comment by me- click tracks can destroy musical performance, suck the life right out of them. Tying creative work to technology and technique needs to be done carefully and without putting the cart before the horse, so to speak.

Some cameras click louder than others.

DREW WILEY · Oct 27, 2022

Ironically, the earlier versions of Moonrise, prior to selenium enhancement of the negative contrast, can fetch the highest prices - not because they look better, but because they are a lot scarcer.

Alan Edward Klein · Oct 28, 2022

So how much did AA really put into the zone system? I get a sense that he winged it when he shot and printed; more than he lets on.

BrianShaw · Oct 28, 2022

Alan Edward Klein said:
So how much did AA really put into the zone system? I get a sense that he winged it when he shot and printed; more than he lets on.

In addition to being a decent photographer, he was certainly a master storyteller and self-promoter. I have no doubt that you are correct in some circumstances. Otherwise, the image probably would have never happened.

I'd add a second question with the same answer, "So how much did AA really put into visualization? I get a sense that he (often) winged it when he shot." It's clear that he post-visualized and re-visualized quite a lot but too much before the shutter is released is a big risk to no image at all.

Sirius Glass · Oct 28, 2022

Alan Edward Klein said:
So how much did AA really put into the zone system? I get a sense that he winged it when he shot and printed; more than he lets on.

When one uses the Zone System long enough it becomes reflexive. Almost automatic.

Vaughn · Oct 28, 2022

Alan Edward Klein said:
So how much did AA really put into the zone system? I get a sense that he winged it when he shot and printed; more than he lets on.

Luck favors the prepared...and that especially applies when 'winging it'. The Zone System is just that -- AA's system for winging it.

When one uses the Zone System long enough it becomes reflexive. Almost automatic.

It is just the routine I follow to match the SBR (or SLR) with the film, developer and printing process I will be using. It has taken a few decades of winging it, keeping notes, and such to reach a point where I might be improving a little.

DREW WILEY · Oct 28, 2022

After a certain point, AA predictably knew what he was doing. But still, that had to factor a relatively wide margin of error due to the less accurate light meters during much of that era, as well as lesser quality control of actual film speeds. Late in his career, things improved. Over the long run, there's simply no substitute for sheer experience shooting and printing, no matter what tools you have available.

Remember, at no time in the history of the universe has the intensity of light been divided into eight discrete segments, or ten, or whatever. It's a continuum, and in any photographic application, not wholly linear, but subject to differing sensitometric curves which the ZS in unable to fully take into account in any ideal manner. After all, the ZS is really just a shorthand system for which bin to toss your threshold shadow values in, before developing for the highlights. It took a complete kook like Minor White to assign different mystical connotations to each zone-numbered shade of gray, though he personally made great prints despite that utterly illogical idiosyncrasy. Don't make a religion out of it!

My gripe with the Zone System, as commonly practiced, is the habit of compressing the highlights through reduced development if they don't otherwise fit into the pre-determined mould. There are other ways to solve that problem without the risk of smashing together the fine gradation in the middle or the cumulative sandwich, especially now that VC papers are way better than in AA's day.

villagephotog · Nov 3, 2022

Alan Edward Klein said:
Ok then let's discuss Brett Weston's blacks. How does the Zone system figure in there when he's looking to get blacks and heighten contrast? Why do so many people get hung up on wanting to see details in shadow areas? (Note that digital photographers make just a big deal about it maybe more.)

My feeling is that work should be based on the aesthetic you want from it. Just because technology allows you to squeeze details out of shadow areas, doesn't mean that's what you ought to do. Otherwise, we're allowing technology to dictate art rather than our hearts and minds.

Alan, your comment reminded me of something that the Magnum photographer, Alex Majoli, said to me years ago when I was writing a magazine profile of him.

He had started using a digital camera, but one thing about it really pissed him off: all the shadow detail it effortlessly captured. "There are no blacks," he said. "I need the blacks!"

Here's his Magnum portfolio, chock full o' blacks: https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/alex-majoli/

Alan Edward Klein · Nov 3, 2022

villagephotog said:
Alan, your comment reminded me of something that the Magnum photographer, Alex Majoli, said to me years ago when I was writing a magazine profile of him.

He had started using a digital camera, but one thing about it really pissed him off: all the shadow detail it effortlessly captured. "There are no blacks," he said. "I need the blacks!"

Here's his Magnum portfolio, chock full o' blacks: https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/alex-majoli/

I shoot Velvia. Lots of blacks and no details in some shadows. Not quite like Majoli. But he understands.

Poor man's previsualization

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