An Inside Look at Ansel Adams' Darkroom Magic

[@marcsilber]

Well. This is a great example of what photography was (is) in the first place : Craft. One MAKES a photography. Even more obvious in the old,days where releasing the shutter was just one step in middle of a process, right after composing, framing, determening depth of field, B&W filters etc, and right before going to the reverse process with the enlarger, and finally, the process of printing, and framing the photograph properly. Great video !!!

[@mahamza86]

This is pure Photography Gold. Thanks for sharing the experience. much appreciated.

[@Marc-WOA]

As a new age digital young professional knowing something but not lots about the old photography workflows I truly love this channel. Thanks for sharing!

[@Nat.ImagesLarge.F.Photographer]

The true photography,Master Ansel,fantastic!!!!

[@slvbackyard]

Hi Mark: What a treat to visit the dark room of one of my life time favorite photographers. Pretty amazing! I had no idea how involved and evolved his dark room process was. Thanks for the insight. Fred

[@marcsilber]

thanks Fred, he was quite the scientist in all aspects of his photography!

[@EElgar1857]

So wonderful to see where the Master worked. How could anyone give this a "thumbs-down"?!?!

[@TheStockwell]

My guess: they're iPhone users who see this video about real photographic techniques - and then experience shame and despair. ☺

[@adamtruelove9684]

Oh my god.... Precious footage... Thank you so much for sharing this video!!!

[@marcsilber]

you're welcome Adam

[@beaupfeifferrecordings]

love your work an artist at work all hands on deck star

[@MarcosRochaTV]

Wow!! He created his own Photoshop system.

[@salvatoreshiggerino6810]

Even down to the symbol for the dodge tool

[@marcsilber]

👍

[@germaicanlady]

I wonder if it was really a microwave, Ansel Adams used. We used to use a heater oven at low temperatures or a heated glazer to dry our barite prints. However, I could still believe he used a microwave... after all, he adopted (invented) many other things like the enlarger with indidual light switches! That's awesome!

[@marcsilber]

Hey Chrissie, yes it was a real microwave in his kitchen! I've seen the footage of it. Since "visualization" meant to see the whole image all the through to the print on the wall or in a book, this was part of his process.

[@germaicanlady]

Thank you for replying! :-)

[@chickenitsa]

I believe (that's to say.. I've heard from different sources over the years) that Ansel's horizontal enlarger was built by his good friend, Adolf Gasser (Michael Adams says that Ansel "had 'some help' putting it together". Ha! Gasser was one of the finest 'mechanics' for photographic equipment of the era! ). As for John Sexton designing the ventilation system, doesn't sound likely because I believe that enlarger was installed in the early 60s, when John was a kid.

[@marcsilber]

he probably was helped by Gssser who helped him with this cameras for sure. John my have added the ventilation later when he was assisting him in the darkroom.

[@dalemews1]

Fascinating insight into the great man's darkroom Marc. I wonder what Ansel would have made of Photoshop and it's ability to transform and manipulate images. Photography or graphic design?

[@marcsilber]

I'm sure he would have embraced it and fully utilized it, and probably come up with his own modifications!

[@lhaviland8602]

He was extremely exited about the promises of digital photography so it'd say he would've loved it.

[@marcsilber]

Yes he would have. He was a geek for sure

[@DougGrinbergs]

5:30 wow - custom *36-bulb* monster enlarger!

[@marcsilber]

yep it's quite a machine

[@fionasutherland2438]

The man was a genius!!

[@elbryan9]

I wonder why all those lights had individual switches instead of one master switch to control them all. Did it help with exposure or dodge and burn or something?

[@SamuelMonteArrieta]

Sure they helped exposing exactly how he wanted to. This is some awesome footage.

[@marcsilber]

yes he could control the amount of light going to each part of the negative. I have never seen another enlarger like this! Burning and dodging is done at the paper end of the process, his switches controlled the light output itself!

[@SamuelMonteArrieta]

+Advancing Your Photography cool! So would it be like changing the opacity via bulb output then??

[@marcsilber]

it changed the amount of light going to that area of the negative, thus changing its exposure, in effect he could control the shadows, highlights etc the way we do with LightRoom!

[@robertkorn]

Yes, it would change the amount of light going to the negative but that has nothing to due with controlling shadows and highlights. If you had his zone system bible, "The Negative" you would understand that he achieved that with careful measurement at time of exposure and development time of his negatives. Any refinement of this was done in his burning and dodging.

[@LarrySteiner]

I bet Ansel had seen a lithgraphers process camera. This homemade rig is similar.

[@ythefeds]

Cameo by Frederick Van Johnson from TWIP

[@marcsilber]

That's right and you'll see Robert Scoble shooting at the end ;)

[@lesslighter]

just like old times huh... though its nice to see other people's dark room setups as my school only had the most basic when it comes to printing film photography and normally we worked and tried to match with a wet photo we didnt learn any more than printing so the "art" of dodging and burning wasnt taught but the basics could be used as for the multiple light setup while at first it may not seem to serve no purpose as it all depends on the enlargement of the photography but with a weaker light stream you get more leeway when it comes to calculating the time to expose the photo on paper (typically 3-5 seconds at full blast with a single bulb) so if you arent as "healthy" as your used to, then time is probably your friend at that point especially if you work alone without any help makes we wonder if he had individual light switches how did he take the paper out of the light stream to begin the developing process? surely having to switch of the lights one by one would be hard or maybe the multiple light setup is just there in any case he would need to deal with larger negative plates

[@marcsilber]

I'm assuming he set the lights on and off as he examined the projected negative as you see him doing at the beginning of the video, then would continue to fine tune with test prints.

[@aeromodeller1]

There could have been a master switch, or print exposure could be controlled with a lens cap or slide.

[@ahcappella]

In the microwave!!

[@philipadam7870]

Ansel was extremely careful in his use of language to describe his process / technique. The use of "darkroom magic" is most unfortunate.

[@DougGrinbergs]

He keeps calling the enlarger a camera.

[@marcsilber]

it began as a camera, turned into an enlarger

[@dougelick8397]

@@marcsilber What's old is new again. Intrepid makes a 4x5 camera and a kit including an LED cold head and built in timer to convert it into an enlarger.