dick ranez

I recently jousted with a fellow enthusiast in a conversation about Ansel Adams. His position was that Adams would be very disappointed with today's digital cameras and printing techniques. Mine was that Adams would quickly embrace the whole process and would have been an early adopter and embraced the finishing options of Photoshop from the beginning. Any opinions?

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

From my reading and conversations with personal acquaintances and associated of AA, I believe he would have embraced the modern technology, but only to a point.
--Bob

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Adams was a visionary photographer who could "SEE" an image in his minds eye. He would shoot the image onto film and spend hours or days manipulating that initial image in the darkroom (AKA Post Processing) to obtain that initially imagined final image. Of course he would have been a Photoshop master as well had it been available in his day. No question about it as he was a MASTER of the darkroom process, the secret to all his success.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

My impression is that Adams' primary goal was getting his vision of a scene into a print, and the techniques and skills he developed over his career were all in aid of achieving that goal. If a tool came along that would improve or simplify (ideally, both) the process, I suspect he would have embraced it quickly.

So - as to digital processing, I suspect that once the printers, papers and inks were available to put his vision in a print of acceptable quality, he would have happily moved to digital capture and post processing.

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

But probably only in Monochrome. He once raged at Eliot Porter, "Your whites aren't clean," or something to that effect. Although I do have a copy of "Ansel Adams in Color."

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

You are most likely right, although he probably would consider digital just an additional arsenal of tools.

John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

It has been my impression that Ansel Adams was adept at capturing a message in a scene and used the then available technology as a tool to achieve his objectives. No doubt AA would use today’s digital camera tools to take his vision even further than film & developer & printing afforded. Was not AA an artist in the first instance.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

If Ansel Adams couldn't deliver straight out of camera (SOOC) JPEGs, he is not a photographer worthy of the name Ansel Adams ....

BebuLamar

I think if I remember correctly AA said in one of his books that he would embrace electronic imaging when the time comes. Of course he passed away too early.

tommystrat Loc: Bigfork, Montana

A similar question has been debated through the years - what would the Beatles have done with digital recording technology, Pro Tools, unlimited tracks, AutoTune, etc. etc.? For most of their recording career, they only had 4 tracks to record on, and overdubs were always plagued with an analog noise floor that just got worse the more you overdubbed. Would they have embraced digital and the unlimited possibilities and, if so, would the music have been better / different? They and George Martin were magicians in the studio with the equipment and technology they had at the time. Would digital have just made them lazy? Or more creative? Or...? And the debate continues...

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Dick, I had the pleasure of taking a workshop with him in 1972 in Yosemite.He would constantly upgrade his cameras for more pixels and features. My opinion also is that he would be a master today in manipulation of his images in Adobe and many other programs. He believe capturing the image is 1/2 the task. The other half is manipulation.

BebuLamar

You could ask that question to Paul or Ringo.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Since Sir Paul is still recording and touring, I’m sure he is intimately familiar with the potential of digital technologies.

That said, he believes in the power of song writing first. If the message is weak, the medium doesn’t matter.

Photocraig

My guess is that Ansel, today, would be making photographs and processing them to express his vision rapidly mastering the PP facilities available today.

I think he would quickly focus his influence and talents onto the Print production end products of our Digital Medium. While we have made magnificent strides in capturing and Processing images, I think the final printing, both presentation and through lithography has not kept pace.

Given his ground breaking Silver processing in the darkroom, and his influences and manipulation of teh materials of the day, he and his revered colleagues would likely push today's materials and processes much further than today's generation of masters seem to have done. I'm still waiting to see those continuous tones of skin and sky reproduced as lusciously as those iconic Black and Whites of yesteryear.

I must admit, I don't get out to galleries much anymore, but I haven't seen digital prints that match what captivated me so long ago and made me want to photograph more.
C

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

This is a popular kind question we oftentimes see on the forum. What would any of the iconic photographer of the past do in the digital age? An easy answer could be "God only knows, who knows?, who cares"? or, alternatively, a whole lot of speculation.

So let's be analytical in this case. Put on your historical detective hats, do a little research and make some reasonable deductions and try to reach a conclusion.

Perhaps I have a slight advantage. In that, I read ALL of Ansel Adams books- the older and later editions and did attend ONE of his workshops. I am also aware of his history and with the f/64 Group and his aversion to impressionistic styles of photography. This is not to say I hobnobbed with Mr. Adams, or any other of the iconic or prominent photographer I may have crossed paths with, studied under or attended classes with. In the workshop, however, I did get some first-hand insight in Mr.Adams incredible degree of expertise and craftsmanship and phenomenal teaching abilities and personality. I did not take in the workshop to become a great landscape photographer but actually to learn and apply the Zone System and related darkroom technique to my commercial photography- to gain fill contrast and range control.

So...no let's examine the evidence. Ansel Adams was the grandmaster of precise tonal control so I can speculate that all of the capabilities and potential of digital post-processing would have been right up his alley.

Although Adams was especially noted for his usage of large-format equipment- view and field cameras, he also did also use medium and miniature format cameras in some of his work. I, therefore, deduce that he had no aversion to various improvements, changes and development in the photographic technologies as they presented themselves. There were photographers at the workshop that inquired about use of roll film in the zone system and the only limitation Adams pointed out was no being able to individually expose and process each frame as per the Zone System- the entire roll would have to be treated the same way in processing.

The only aspect of post-processing that Adams would probably discard is the extreme application of special effects- the same as he opposed in film work. Adding textures, creating line-dropouts, simulating cross-processing, etc. Anyone who studied Adam's history knows of his philosophical differences with the likes of William Mortensen- and that's putting it mildly!

My educated guess is that Ansel Adam would completely embrace digital imaging and all current and future technological progressions.

I would add that the medium- film or digital, has very little to do with a photographers artistry, perception of light, aptness for composition, degree of craftsmanship and work ethic. Mr. Adams would have done very well in our current technologies. My guess is the only problem that would cause him to revert to film and refuse to transition into digital photography is if he determined that he would not attain the level of quality that he was accustomed to. Watching him work in his darkroom with an 8x10 enlarger, rolling on tracks and projecting the image on a wall to make photomurals and literally "dancing" in the light path to dodge and burn the image, I can assure you that his mastery of our current technologies would be a "piece of cake" for him!

Of course, it is difficult if not impossible to get into all of our favorite iconic photographer's heads and fully understand what motivated them, or what they would do in any hypothetical situation. Perhaps we "read more into" the work or philosophy of our individual heroes or for that matter. those of the photographers we are not fans of. All I can offer is the history and the evidence and each of us needs to come to our own conclusions.

I was fortunate enough tho have studied photography and start my professional career in New York City. I was able to access lectures, classes, and seminars with a few of the iconic photographers or I made some contact with them at various trade shows and conventions. Again, most of them were no my "buddies" nor did I socialize with any of them to any great extent. I continually studied under a very few. I'll drop a few names; Peter Gowland, Richard Avadon, Milton Green, Phillippe Hallman, Joseph Schneider, David Douglas Duncan, Yosef Karsh, and there was a host of others that are well known in the portrait, commercial and wedding industries. There was a common denominator that seems to apply to all of them. They were straightforward, most were plain talkers, down to earth, informative and inspiring and most adhered to an elegant and surprisingly degree of simplicity in their work and their teachings.