Old Photography, New Photography

For those of you who have been out of touch with anything involving great art in the past 100 years, then you probably don't know who Ansel Adams is. Well, I would like to introduce you to Mr. Adams. He was a brilliant photographer who took some of the most awe-inspiring black and white photos you will ever see (and some pretty great color photos as well). Ansel and a few of his photographer friends developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting depth and clarity characterized his photos. Ansel primarily used large format cameras, despite their size, weight, set up time and film cost, because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images.

These days, with the Internet and Photoshop and every other resource at your fingertips, I doubt any photographer would make the sacrifices that he did, or even put time into the actual photos, not just the editing. The Internet and widespread usage of editing software has dramastically (my own word combo of dramatically and drastically) changed the game of being a photographer. When Ansel was taking photos the only editing he did was move from spot to spot trying to perfect his shot. No digital 3 inch LCD viewing screen or the button we all love so much, DELETE! It was just a man, his camera, and a boat load of film. My favorite quote by him is, "a good photo is knowing where to stand." I couldn't agree more with you Ansel. A good photo is not about the editing, it's about the photo you took and the work and time you put into taking that photo. Not adding clouds or photoshopping (I hate that this is even a word now, even my grandmother knows what it means, which means its widespread!) an unnecessary item out of a photo.

Just imagine the hours that photographers put into editing photos and multiply that by a brazillion (way more than a trillion) and that is how long it took ole Ansel just to get one shot, one shot! With today's technology, taking photos takes 20 minutes while editing photos takes 20 hours. I long for photographers to revert back to the old ways of taking photos, but I'm an optimist and a realist. And naive. I wish it would happen, but know it's virtually impossible with today's technology. If you are a photographer, you have and use editing software. If not, you don't get the jobs :(

Now for some honesty. Not saying that I haven't been honest, its just the above was my opinion and that differs from actual truth. The truth is I have editing software and use it. BUT, I use it in a conservative manner. I may change a color photo to black and white or crop an image to ensure betting sizing and quality, and I always add "Skelton Photographie", but that's it!

I just think that photos that have been over manipulated in Photoshop aren't visually interesting or stunning, just cheap. Over editing can cheapen a photo and you lose the actual photo because you are concerned with editing and all these nifty effects. I personally like to look at my final products and be stunned by what I captured with my camera, not the effects I applied after the fact in Photoshop.

Below you'll see two photographs. One is mine, one is Ansel's. I know his is on a completely different level than mine, but I just wanted to introduce him to you.


My tribute to Ansel Adams

Actual Ansel Adams photograph

Sorry for the rant, but as always, thanks for listening, er reading.