Weston and Adams: A long winded Context for Personal Technique

lee · Nov 30, 2005

I tend to relate this to music. If you can't play your instrument you ain't gonna make music. Unfortunately tecnique is part of the deal. Learn it and use it to your advantage. Someone once told me that those who bitch about pretty prints generaly can't print pretty,

lee\c

Charles Webb · Nov 30, 2005

Mr. Cardwell,
I want to simply say thank you for taking the time and spending the effort to put together your most interesting and in my opinion extremely accurate post. You express much of what I have tried in vain to say in a rescent thread. What you have written is very thought provoking, and contains many great "tid bits" for anyone who works or plays with photography, as I said, thank you very much! Charlie............

toddstew · Nov 30, 2005

It's all photography, and within that world, all photographers find their method and the great ones find their voice. I think it's great to get people all fired up every once and a while with this argument, but what does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?
Another thought... What about Cartier-Bresson, who asked why both Adams and Weston were both shooting rocks and trees when there are wars and examples of humanity in the world to be photographed? I personally like to shoot trees and rocks and anything else that captures my eyes and mind, but I thought I would throw that out for possible depate.

David · Nov 30, 2005

toddstew said:
It's all photography, and within that world, all photographers find their method and the great ones find their voice. I think it's great to get people all fired up every once and a while with this argument, but what does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?
Another thought... What about Cartier-Bresson, who asked why both Adams and Weston were both shooting rocks and trees when there are wars and examples of humanity in the world to be photographed? I personally like to shoot trees and rocks and anything else that captures my eyes and mind, but I thought I would throw that out for possible depate.

Perhaps because it's all there, it simply is. As Minor White said, "Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence." If a 'relationship' develops between photographer and subject and photography becomes possible then we would be hasty to judge the merits of the object, the subject or the representation in a photograph. In criticism (the 'why don't you' stance) the balance between judgment and respect can be stretched without apparent benefit. Is a rock or tree less worthy than a war (or visa versa)? If so, why?

This is hijacking the thread a bit since technique - rather than vision is the topic. But they really can't be separated without peril.

toddstew · Nov 30, 2005

David said:
Perhaps because it's all there, it simply is. As Minor White said, "Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence." If a 'relationship' develops between photographer and subject and photography becomes possible then we would be hasty to judge the merits of the object, the subject or the representation in a photograph. In criticism (the 'why don't you' stance) the balance between judgment and respect can be stretched without apparent benefit. Is a rock or tree less worthy than a war (or visa versa)? If so, why?

Yes! I find that one's relationship with their surroundings is what's important. How they interact is less important, be it through photography, or any other positive means. To take it to an even more micro level, does a person express their photographic take on something through a precise, perfectly exposed negative or through a negative(or positive) that is more intuitive and "emotional,"? Whatever the approach, that is how that person chooses to speak photographically. Some choose their photo-voice based on ulterior motivations, but eventually, if someone is trying to grow as an artist, their own methodology should start to emerge. And that's when their personality begins to steer the ship.

df cardwell · Nov 30, 2005

It's great to talk about vision: the tying up of everything is the most interesting part to me.

A friend is an astonishing traditional fiddler: he has a practically baroque technique and would be at home with the wonderful classical violinists of the world.

The place that the traditional and the classical traditions share is an amazing and wonderful place. The fiddler that reads little music but has thousands of tunes in his head is absolutely a different beast than a classically trained violinist. Yet truth is truth, and music is music.

That's the interesting about all art, and especially a technology linked craft like photography. That we each find our way is the important thing.

.

toddstew · Nov 30, 2005

Indeed, indeed
Todd

Struan Gray · Dec 1, 2005

The BBC made a wonderful film of Yehudhi Menhuin in Shetland, being castigated by a local fiddle legend for having no 'snap' to his playing.

In Physics there is a widely-acknowledged division between geometers and analysts: between those that think in pictures and those that think in equations. Oddly, some of the most famous analysts (like Dirac) insist that they are geometers, but rarely vice versa.

Modern materials and the ready availability of light meters make a lot of Adam's rigour unnecessary. Weston's intuitive methods are more inspirational to me, but the general framework of Adam's ideas are of more practical use.

RAP · Dec 1, 2005

Have you ever read the account of how AA made the negative of probably the most celebated landscape, "Moon Rise Hernandez? It appears in his Making of 50 Photographs book.

In a mad dash to beat the setting sun, he set up his 8x10, composed, focused, choose a filter, ready to shoot, but could not find his meter. He then rememberd the reflectence of the moon in foot candles, and in his head, computed the exposure with filter factor, just in time to make one, 8x10 exposure before the sun set completely.

I wonder how much money those few minutes and exposure are worth, when you consider the prints made, sold and resold over the years?

toddstew · Dec 1, 2005

That's more of an example of his saying that chance favors the prepared, or something to that effect. His tack-sharp, calculating mind was able to help him capture an image that is beautiful, but at the same time a bit over-rated.

RAP · Dec 1, 2005

Don't we wish our images were half as over rated as AA's?

The point is that learning technique and craft leads to control, control leads to intuitition, intuition to creativity. In photography, the zone system facilitates that.

toddstew · Dec 1, 2005

Agreed. And who am I to over-rate one of the great photographs of all time. My reasoning is that I see it in a gallery priced at nearly a half million dollars. I can think of several images that I would spend that kind of money on(having that kind of money is another story).
Humbly,
Todd

Bill Hahn · Dec 1, 2005

I don't want to go too off topic with this, just want to provide a reference about Bill Mortensen for those who haven't heard of him:

see A. D. Coleman's book "Depth of Field" - there is a chapter in there called something like "the mysterious disappearance of William Mortensen". He and Ansel had a debate in Camera Craft
magazine in the 1930's about what photography should be. He ridiculed Adams and the f64 philosophy....look at the cover of "Depth of Field" (look it up on amazon). That picture is called
"The Quest for Pure Form", Mortensen is posing as the deranged photographer pointing to the pea, and this picture appeared in Camera Craft as part of the debate.

That said, I still went to the Ansel Adams exhibit in Boston yesterday.

hortense · Dec 1, 2005

GREAT writing and capture (workshop material.

df cardwell · Dec 1, 2005

toddstew said:
Agreed. And who am I to over-rate one of the great photographs of all time. My reasoning is that I see it in a gallery priced at nearly a half million dollars. I can think of several images that I would spend that kind of money on(having that kind of money is another story).
Humbly,
Todd

Too bad Ansel never saw any of it.

I don't think Edw Weston ever got more than $250 for a print.

.

David · Dec 1, 2005

Gore Vidal said of Truman Capote when TC died that it was a good career move.

severian · Dec 6, 2005

Jim Chinn said:
I agree that everyone has to find there own comfort zone with technique, but it becomes easy to be paralyzed by it also. I went on a little road trip one Saturday and drove about 80 miles with my 4x5 to photograph some machinery I had seen on another day. How it happend I don't remember, but I dropped my light meter I had had for several years and it broke. Crestfallen, I was stumped. Wasted all that gas and time. then of course I thought for a moment, used the sunny 16 rule, opened up one or two stops to ensure I got good exposure in the shadows. Amazingly, the negs turned out about perfect or as well as they would have been with a meter.

Jim,
Need your permission to copy your reply, put it in waterproof plastic, hang it from a chain around every one of my students neck and insist that every one of them read it at least 3 times a day. five times for extra credit
Jack B

David A. Goldfarb · Dec 6, 2005

Somewhere Art Morris recounts a similar tale. In his early days of bird photography, he discovered the sunny 16 rule when his camera meter didn't work, so he read the instructions on the film box about "full sun, no clouds," etc., and his slides were perfect.

Chuck_P · Dec 6, 2005

RAP said:
Don't we wish our images were half as over rated as AA's?

The point is that learning technique and craft leads to control, control leads to intuitition, intuition to creativity. In photography, the zone system facilitates that.

RAP,

I think AA would be quite pleased with that statement --- I think he would say you have successfully grasped the essential benefit of what the ZS is all about, that's how I feel about it anyway, therefore I agree with your comment. To me, it is a form of control that transcends from a mostly mechanical approach in the beginning to what is ultimately meant to be a completely intuitive interaction that guides you from what you see through the viewfinder to what you wish to express on the negative and therefore, the print.

AA:

"It is not my intension to impose my "vision" on others, but to assist in the development of creative expression, whatever form that may take, by offering some suggestions on ways one may think about light and subject matter.......Once the craft is under intuitive control, the creative objective is more positive and assured. Proficiency of craft should by no means be considered the goal in itself."

As I see it, AA's use of the ZS in making a photograph is ultimately just as intuitive as anyone else's when it came to getting the information on the negative-----I know that's what I am working toward. Again, I think AA would say, If I could pose the question to him today, yes, you understand the essential idea. I just hope we don't get into a discussion of one professional's sense of intuition versus anothers.

Adams and Weston were very different photographers as we all agree. Each had a vision that served the respective photographer superbly-----for the life of me I can't understand why it should be any more complicated than that.

Chuck

WarEaglemtn · Dec 12, 2005

"Actually, it was Minor White's idea."

Please give Fred Archer some credit for the Zone System also.

df cardwell · Dec 12, 2005

WarEaglemtn said:
"Actually, it was Minor White's idea."

Please give Fred Archer some credit for the Zone System also.

I think you're quoting me ! Thank you.

I had nothing to say about Fred Archer because the quotation was in response to a kindhearted jest relating my approach to photography to the finer point's of Spinal Tap's unique sound.

I only wanted to reply in a similar, jesting tone, and suggest that 12 tones was not my idea, but came from a chance comment by Minor White. It had to do with the difficulty a photographer was having trying to hold shadow detail accented by black, have separated midtones, while all along the way managing several steps of light gray. White suggested that he think of there being 12 steps from Black to White, and ( insert boring technical hocus-pocus here ): and that chance comment was exactly the thump on the head that I needed to get a grasp of the Zone System in order to make it serve me and the way I saw things and felt about them.

Fred Archer was not there. Ansel was. I was way in back, waiting to be thrown out. Alas, Mr. Archer passed away a few years prior to this, Mr. White and Mr. Adams too soon after.

Indeed, Mr. Archer was significant influence on Adams, and was a wonderful photographer. Please overlook my too frequent lapses of clarity.

photobearcmh · Jan 10, 2006

Exactly why from day one is have been important to me to be an artist first, a photographer second. Everything I do technically serves one purpose, to convey emotion. It is all just means to an end. "course that is what works for me.

Weston and Adams: A long winded Context for Personal Technique

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