It wasn't philosophy as much as his own brand of mysticism.
But he was indeed a superlative photographer and printer. Whether you call it previsualisation or just plain visualisation, it certainly worked.
I don't think it was a coincidence that Minor White looked just like the wild-eyed professor in Back to the Future. He certainly made some compelling prints; but he probably would have anyway without all the extra philosophical baggage.
It's likely that your metering technique suits the sort of negatives you like. Even simple placement rules like "don't let the meter see the bright sky" make more difference that a few 1/3 of a stop.I always shoot at box speed and have never used the zone system.
Am I a philistine?
I got to the Minor White workshop by default. I was attending college, my school did not offer photography but did offer a minor in photojournalism as it offer journalism. For some reason that I never understood, my school, LaVern College,got a grant to send one student to a workshop. This the 60s so it was big deal, travel, lodging and food. I was selected to go as I was the only student who had a 4X5, a speed graphic. Minor White was not amused. As a person who was training to be a photojournalist the idea of the ZS was a mystery. We spent 2 days learning to see (visualize or previsualize) in black and white. I cant say that I was an enthusiast, my usual format was and is 35mm. Still I do find it useful when shooting 4X5. Minor White was asked what he thought the difference was between visualization and pre visualization. I don't think he gave a answer that I could understand. In his book The Zone System Manual he writes.
Previsualition refers to the learnable power to look a scene person, or situation and "see" at the same time on the back of the eyelib or "sense" deep in the mind or body the various ways photography can render the subject. Then out of the all the potential rendering select one to photograph. Such selection makes up a large share of the photographer's creativity.
I have always used visualization.
I don't think it was a coincidence that Minor White looked just like the wild-eyed professor in Back to the Future. He certainly made some compelling prints; but he probably would have anyway without all the extra philosophical baggage.
It's likely that your metering technique suits the sort of negatives you like. Even simple placement rules like "don't let the meter see the bright sky" make more difference that a few 1/3 of a stop.
So when I move around to get the right angle and compose my shot before shooting, isn't that visualization (or previsualization a la White)? So who doens;t do that?
So when I move around to get the right angle and compose my shot before shooting, isn't that visualization (or previsualization a la White)? So who doens;t do that?
So when I move around to get the right angle and compose my shot before shooting, isn't that visualization (or previsualization a la White)? So who doens;t do that?
Photography has possibilities and limitations. Black-and-white photography has the abstraction afforded by the rendering of colors as shades of gray plus the possibility to change the relationships around using filters. Then there are development controls to affect contrast, etc., etc.So when I move around to get the right angle and compose my shot before shooting, isn't that visualization (or previsualization a la White)? So who doesn't do that?
Alan - In this context you need to distinguish between things like perspective and composition from the kind of mystical "previsualization" Minor White had in mind, or in his mind at least. There certainly is a lot of Gestalt to his prints - or just call them "heavvvy, Dude" if that explains it. ... not as if you need to worry about any of that in your own workflow. The Zone System can be just a practical tool without all the voodoo psychology. One can adopt whatever is useful to them personally, and ignore the rest, if that is what works. I don't worry about any of it.
Doremus - AA did try to apply his version of the ZS to color photography too; but it was a misfit. With color, you're working center out in terms of proper hue placement, whereas in black and white you're selecting a tonal range between personally defined extremes. AA's limited amount color work wasn't shabby; but it wasn't all that special either. Finely controlling the interaction of hues is a whole different ballgame than working with grayscale tonality. I enjoy doing both, although an awful lot of color I see is more about being superficially "colorful" rather than anything sensitively balanced.
When it comes to Minor White attaching mystical connotations to different shades of gray, that's what Kandinsky and Karl Gerstner did to different discrete colors. Each had their own diecast manifesto mentality about such things, which ironically varies with different background cultures anyway.
Since AA did not have access to MG paper and split grade printing, can we assume that much better prints can now be achieved?
Minor White took the whole rendering of tones into the realm of psychological expression and mysticism; kind of like Scriabin did with harmonies.
Since AA did not have access to MG paper and split grade printing, can we assume that much better prints can now be achieved?
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