I am a commercial photographer- that's what I do for a living. I never aspire to become a famous nature or landscape photographer so why, during my student days and early career, make it my business to take in two Ansel Adams workshops and read and study all of his books and also study the work of Minor White and other practitioners of the Zone System. I was not interested in manipulating images beyond reality or creating bizzare special effects not did I feel that every photograph needed to be clinically accurate or or docuimentry in content. I just wanted to take control of the process to the best of my ability so that I could produce whatever kind of imagery that I was interested in producing. There were many great photographers whose work I admired but at the time Adams was one of the few that openly shared his techniques in finite detail in his teachings, classes and books. Some of my favorite photographers were dead, some were simply NOT accessible to young aspiring kids like I was at the time and many of the top professionals liked to keep "secrets" and tended to operate very close to their chests. Some of the "stars" would offer lectures and speeches at camera clubs and associating conventions but the would never get into the technical details and just boast of their sessions or encounters with celebrities or their big assignments but never mention an f/stop, a shutter speed or a process. Adans was the REAL DEAL- he could teach as well as he could shoot! He could certain inspire folks to apply themselves and instill a work ethic in guys like me.

There is so much "mythology" surrounding Adams and many of his contemporaries. I watched him work in his darkroom making prints and photo-murals. There was no trickery, outrageous effects or affectations or out of the box manipulations, just good solid, sound, consistent and repeatable photographic technique and methodology.Yes, there were lots of steps and logical improvements to the process such as pre-soaking of film, careful attention to exposure and relative development, compression and expansion of the tonal range of films and masterful and craftsman-like printing methods. The zone system was nothing more that really understand the gray scale, the charactics of the materials and taking control over what we now call dynamic range or gradation of tone.

So folks...what did I take away from my workshops and reading. I did not go home and back to my studio and adopt the ZONE SYSTEM in every detail. I did however, at the time, place his overlay over my Weston meter's calculator dial to take the zones into consideration. I adopted methods that boiled down to underexposure and over development or overexposure underdevelopment combined with some pre-soaking to facilitate increase or decrease of contrast respectively.

Anyone who is really experienced or knowledgeable in traditional darkroom procedures must realize that routine dodging (holding back) burning in (local) additive exposure during printing), cropping, flashing, and some local use of concentrated developers or bleaches during print processing are not meant to manipulate the theme or content of any image - usually just to bring things into a normal range of detail or to emphasize or subdue varios tonal elements- not to fool anyone or misrepresent anything. There aforementioned procedures should no be confused with radical retouching, airbrushing of prints, montage printing, extreme special effects or purposeful artistic manipulation. Eve if the photographer is after total documentary photographic reproduction of any person place or object, it is not always possible to accomplish that right out of the camera- sometimes things need to be tweaked in the darkroom or nowadays on the computer.

What I learned for Adams, served me well in my black and white work for many years and has also extended into my color and digital processes as well. Even in rather mundane work like creating wedding formal portraits with detail in white gowns and black formal wear. if the negatives or files are made with care and attention to range, print becomes fast and easy. Sometimes industrial work entail shooting machinery in a dark factory or mill and recording detail of equipment that is outside of a window in the same shot. Understanding tonal compression makes that a relatively easy chore. Understand the results obtainable for various kinds of enlarger lamp-housing type such as diffusion, cold light condenser and point light sources was part of the teaching. He worked with a horizontal track mounted 8x10 enlarger for mural work and just about did a dance in the light path to do his burning and dodging- a sight I will never forget and remember fondly!

As for Adam's camera techniques, again, no monkey business- just straight good work! He was a stickler for good clean camera technique careful image management. He made his own lens shades to maximize flare prevention prevention. He would create a shade that was just shot of vignetting and the cut it back- just so. The need for filter is proper panchromatic interpretation was emphasized, multiple meter readings to examine each zone, noting outrageous or trickey!

I never aspired to be an Adams clone or a disciple- I was just sought to learn my trade from a grand master who knew exactly what he was doing and teaching. I never got into to politics of the f/64 group- most of that was before my time. Surprisingly enough, I also loved and studied the work of William Mortensen- the diametric opposite of the Adams school of thought- talk about MANIPULATION!!! i never got into paper negatives but I do get into some soft focus and had a very complete collection of Mortensen kinda texture screen in my long gone black and white darkroom. Nowadays, some of that stuff is still available on the TOPAZ plug in. That would be a good topic for another thread!

Gotta get back to work now- I got a small product shoot and my wife says I have to take out the garbage- some "master photographer" I have become- SEE! Good thing I studied with the best!