Wynn Bullock and Zone System, as told by Edna Bullock

[MattKing]

Plus most people don't care what's in the shadows. The eye goes to the highlights

Alan is quite correct here.
But you need to understand that "most people" is different from "most people who are interested in photography".
If you put a large number of photographs in front of a large number of people, the ones with lots of mid-tones and highlights will be liked more.
If you put the same photographs in front of a bunch of photographers, the darker ones seem to be favoured.
I think there may be at least a Masters thesis in there for someone.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Oh, the people who count can tell the difference. Maybe they can't exactly identify or quantify it, but their own eyes will tell them something is qualitatively different. But I've never sold a print to a tourist in my life, and almost entirely to either other photographers or serious collectors. That's the way I want it anyway. I have my own standards; otherwise, why bother? Once printmaking becomes just another commodity marketing scheme, count me out.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Agree. There were lots of statements in Alan's post that perhaps apply to him, but hardly to "most people." I would also take exception to the statements about the eye going to the highlights and how details in the shadows make the photograph boring and with flat contrast. These are all statements of Alan's personal preferences, and should not be taken as facts.

Well, everyone is giving their opinion here. Aren't I entitled to mine?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Does anyone care you can't see into the shadows of this Adams photo?
https://www.dpreview.com/news/49257...y-1m-at-sotheby-s-auction-total-sales-of-6-4m

 

[Vaughn]

yeah -- because it is in the print where AA wanted people to see it, and not the on-line reproduction. Check this out...

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auc...el-adams-the-grand-tetons-and-the-snake-river

Well, everyone is giving their opinion here. Aren't I entitled to mine?

Of course...but one's right to one's opinion does not necessarily make it right. And if one gives their opinion as fact, then it is open to discussion.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

I suspect you've been looking at poor reproductions online. Adams spent quite a bit of time railing against the "chalk and soot" nature of photographs that don't maintain detail, or, at a minimum, texture, in both the highlights and the shadows. If you read his descriptions of how he made many of his photographs, you'll see that he would take pains to put the darkest parts of the image on zone 3 (perhaps zone 2 if he was feeling bold), and then develop for the highlights. It became such a scientific approach for him that one could argue his artistic vision ceased and he became almost purely formulaic. Perhaps you can identify some of the "many" Adams photographs with complete blackness?

As selling Adams' photos became good business, newer compilations of his work started to pile up. And that sadly meant quality "had" to go down.

On line is not the only source of bad reproductions. And the "400 Photographs" is the biggest, shameless publication of them all. It has a LOT of photos with black holes (and forget brilliance or tonality) that even in his calendars were much better reproduced, plus there should have ever been 400 photographs in one book to start with, as it sadly showed Adams' sameness, lack of photographic vision and as result, supporting all negative opinions of his work. The book of course has not put a dent in the sale prices of his originals, but successfully diminishes his purported life time achievements on aesthetic levels. Or perhaps arsthetics as @Alan Edward Klein likes to put it

As for detail in shadows, we could argue for the rest of this planets life whether viewers are first drawn more to highlights or shadows. An articulate composition will take care of that.

If we make photographs for viewers to approve, we are not presenting our own vision of a scene. So kick ass, stand up to the norms, make those shadow details visible to the last hair or black them out, it's your choice. Now, when lack of shadow detail becomes a felony, you may have to reconsider.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

yeah -- because it is in the print where AA wanted people to see it, and not the on-line reproduction. Check this out...

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auc...el-adams-the-grand-tetons-and-the-snake-river


Of course...but one's right to one's opinion does not necessarily make it right. And if one gives their opinion as fact, then it is open to discussion.

I like your version of Adams Snake River with the shadow areas open more. But even on that one, there are plenty of pretty dark areas.

My point was, and maybe it's more of an issue with digital photography, is that some people become fanatics trying to get every last detail lightened in the shadow areas. Just because modern technology in digital allows 13 stops, doesn't mean from an aesthetic point of view, that you want to pull out those details. Many photographers get hung up on the availability of technology. They do it just because it can be done. They might be better off letting the shadows go a little darker to improve the overall look and impact of the photo. That's the point I'm trying to make. That's my opinion, not a fact.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I was responding to the suggestion that the Zone System was developed within in the context of Western American landscape photography, exclusive of other areas of photography. This seemed to me to exclude the role that the system might be equally spawned in the mind of a Pictorial portrait Photographer. Which is really to say that sensitometry, in all it's various formulations, is applicable to all forms of photography.

Absolutely correct. Adams' development as a photographer and the development of the zone system shouldn't always be fully associated one with the other - which I did. Sometimes they do intersect, other times they run parallel. Adams himself confuses things when he revisits earlier photographs and makes it sound as if at least some zone-system principles were already at work - which, in fact, was the case since the zone system is based on sensitometric principles that date from the late 19th century and were thus already familiar to Adams.

That said, you are implying that Archer also used the zone system in his pictorial work, rather than simply assisting Adams in what he called "the codification of practical sensitometry". Do you have any source for this? I'm genuinely curious about Archer.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

...some people become fanatics trying to get every last detail lightened in the shadow areas... They might be better off letting the shadows go a little darker to improve the overall look and impact of the photo.

And - to bring this back to zone system discussion - Adams would have agreed with you. It's surprising how often he used various degrees of yellow filters, as well as the red one, with the knowledge and intent that it would darken shadow areas.

One caveat to your statement, however. Not sure he wouldn't have done it in order "to improve the overall look" of the photo, but rather on how he felt the scene on that particular day - what he describes as "the effect I felt emotionally" when looking at a particular scene he wanted to capture. In other words, he was looking for drama, not improvement - at least in his early works.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

how he felt the scene on that particular day - what he describes as "the effect I felt emotionally" when looking at a particular scene he wanted to capture.

How exactly does previsualization fit with the "effect that he felt emotionally"? Is previsualization the cause or the effect of the emotional feeling?

 

[Alex Benjamin]

How exactly does previsualization fit with the "effect that he felt emotionally"? Is previsualization the cause or the effect of the emotional feeling?

There is no such thing as "previsualization" [ edit: for Ansel Adams / thank you @MattKing ]. Only "visualization". He describes it pretty clearly when writing about his 1927 experience with Half Dome:

"As I replaced the slide, I began to think about how the print was to appear, and if it would transmit any of the feeling of the monumental shape before me in terms of its expressive-emotional quality. I began to see in my mind's eye the finished print I desired: the brooding cliff with a dark sky and the sharp rendition of distant, snowy Tenaya Peak. I realized that only a deep red filter would give me anything approaching the effect I felt emotionally... I felt I had accomplished something, but did not realize its significance until I developed the plate that evening. I had achieved my first true visualization! I had been able to realize a desired image: not the yay the subject appeared in reality but how it must appear in the finished print... The red filter dramatically darkened the sky and the shadows on the great cliff. Luckily I had with me the filter that made my visualized image possible."

This is pre-zone system. And still a very post-romantic attitude. As someone else has mentioned in this thread, he started getting formulaic with time. Don't know if the zone system - which is anything but a spontaneous response to things - itself is to blame for that, or because these romantic, dramatic scenes just stopped being in phase with the times - as if Thomas Mann would have kept writing The Magic Mountain over and over again for the last 30 years of his life.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I like your version of Adams Snake River with the shadow areas open more. But even on that one, there are plenty of pretty dark areas.

My point was, and maybe it's more of an issue with digital photography, is that some people become fanatics trying to get every last detail lightened in the shadow areas. Just because modern technology in digital allows 13 stops, doesn't mean from an aesthetic point of view, that you want to pull out those details. Many photographers get hung up on the availability of technology. They do it just because it can be done. They might be better off letting the shadows go a little darker to improve the overall look and impact of the photo. That's the point I'm trying to make. That's my opinion, not a fact.

One can go nuts getting every shadow detail to show. The object is to get just enough so that every dark spot looks like a deep hole. Enough to show some depth.

 

[MattKing]

Previsualization means Minor White.
Visualization means Ansel Adams.

 

[Vaughn]

I like your version of Adams Snake River with the shadow areas open more. But even on that one, there are plenty of pretty dark areas.
...

In that print all the detail is there in the dark areas, and there is detail everywhere in the negative. In a scene like the Snake River image (grand landscape) -- there are usually no detail-less, pure black areas in the original scene. If there are any detail-less shadows in the Snake River image, most likely AA purposefully put them there to put more 'power' into the image...to move the viewer. I believe this is basically what you said, but I will still disagree that people do not 'care' about shadow detail. If it affects their viewing on the image, they care about it. whether they reconize the fact or not.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Previsualization means Minor White.
Visualization means Ansel Adams.

D'OH!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

What's the difference between previsualization and postvisualization?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Previsualization is anything that happens before visualization. If you make a photograph, anything that happened before was pre. Waking up, going to the bathroom, the fall of the Roman Empire etc. are previsualization.

Previsualization is like irregardless. There ain't no such words.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

In that print all the detail is there in the dark areas, and there is detail everywhere in the negative. In a scene like the Snake River image (grand landscape) -- there are usually no detail-less, pure black areas in the original scene. If there are any detail-less shadows in the Snake River image, most likely AA purposefully put them there to put more 'power' into the image...to move the viewer. I believe this is basically what you said, but I will still disagree that people do not 'care' about shadow detail. If it affects their viewing on the image, they care about it. whether they reconize the fact or not.

You're making my point Vaughn. You don't automatically bring out the shadows because it can be done. The photographer should ask whether it makes sense to do it? Will it improve the shot? Many photographers just do it as just a step in their process, a knee-jerk reaction. There's no thought about it either way except to bring out the details.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I agree. However depending on which dictionary you consult, stupid things like irregardless are actually considered words, mostly because they have been in common use for so long. Sometimes the evolution of a language involves the incorporation of technically incorrect or redundant things.

Well, it ain't right!

 

[jtk]

How exactly does previsualization fit with the "effect that he felt emotionally"? Is previsualization the cause or the effect of the emotional feeling?

It's a practice and it involves a skill. It doesn't relate to "feeling."

 

[Deleted member 88956]

I'm so glad we got that previsualization and visualization and midvisuazliation and postvisualization all squared up. What ZS would have been without any of it? Just go out, perhaps meter a scene, shoot that damn photo and get another one? I think not.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I'm so glad we got that previsualization and visualization and midvisuazliation and postvisualization all squared up. What ZS would have been without any of it? Just go out, perhaps meter a scene, shoot that damn photo and get another one? I think not.

I've been bracketing my shots: previsualized, visualized, and post-visualized.

 

[Vaughn]

AA said 'visualization', White said 'previsualization', others say 'I saw what I wanted, so I took the photo.'. All means the same.
The amount of thought behind it will differ person to person.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Visualization or previsualization are the same for me. It is what I am considering when I am contemplating the composition before I take the photograph. I really do not care what you call it as long as I am working my way to take the photograph.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

Previsualization is anything that happens before visualization. If you make a photograph, anything that happened before was pre. Waking up, going to the bathroom, the fall of the Roman Empire etc. are previsualization.

I was under the impression that pre-visualization is visualizing the final print before the exposure and post-visualization is visualizing the final print after the test print has been made.