Ansel Adams master black and white photographer

Photography tips and tutorials here www.creativephotoshop.co.uk Ansel Adams was one of the greatest photographers, his work and development of the ZONE system shaped photography as we know it today.

[@northernlights1105]

A masterpiece of art/photography documentary. That was even handcraft beside B/W art ...

[@JoMolovinit]

“Expressions without doctrine, my photographs are presented here as images of the endless moments of the world.” What an expression in itself!

[@kylemccourt663]

My God this is a gem!!!!! I have been a disciple of AA since attending art school in '94 and learning how to use my first Burke and James architectural field camera, which I was happy to see as his 4x5 of choice in this film. Luckily nothing has changed for me over the years though, I have my dream job teaching film photography, and I get to spend my 9-5 in a darkroom every day. I am still a daily film shooter after 30 something years. Long live film!!!! Long love film!!!

[@jm200sx]

sounds wonderful! i hope at somepoint i can get paid to be in the darkroom 9-5. if not ill stay there in most of my spare time :)

[@carlosoruna7174]

Ansell was not only a great photographer but also a great darkroom master printer

[@36on22]

I was fortunate to have met and conversed with Adams a few years before he passed. He was not only a great photographer (artistically, technically and intellectually), but he was also a kind, humble and gentle man.

[@damonpark9353]

20 minutes went by in a flash.. Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece of film

[@foveonyc]

Thank you very much!

[@yetanotherjohn]

Wow! Great stuff. BTW~ The 10 second stopwatch as seen at 14:08 is a WW2 aircraft navigator's and bomber's timepiece, used to measure distances between objects on the ground for a number of seconds, to calculate groundspeed. Loads of them were available after the war.

[@oliviercautres8869]

Ce documentaire est un chef d’œuvre à tout point de vue. À la fois précis, irréel, magique. La simplicité d’un authentique artiste mise en valeur dans un documentaire qui lui correspond parfaitement. Un grand moment de photo. Une œuvre d’art qui rend compte d’un artiste. Rare et émouvant. Merci de l’avoir posté.

[@TheStockwell]

From an early age, Adams was studying to be a concert pianist - his favourite composers of piano music were Bach and Scriabin. Adams was quite good. Then, a Kodak No.1 Brownie camera was put into his young hands. The rest, of course, is photographic history. I've no idea where his piano wound up, but that first camera is in the collection of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York.

[@sr3d-microphones]

What a gem! I noticed no gloves in the developer.. how things used to be eh? I had three enlargers and many cameras from 35mm 6x6 and 1/4 plate Sanderson, even tried colour developing, then in about 1996 the digital started to creep in, and I found another hobby after getting published on a national magazine in 1995, so achieved something that many don't. I was a hive of information back then, and students often asked me for advice and answering questions rather than the tutor!! I was totally obsessed with photography, though never remember that Adams played piano. Funny, I do too!

[@krmnsee5804]

I took a black and white film photography class in 2008 and learned about him, his techniques and his love of nature. I remember being inspired to improve my work in class. Truly a master.

[@roynance1454]

Incredible! I’ll never forget the first print I ever saw printed by the man himself. I was astonished!

[@stevenwagner7520]

Great pictures and to hear Adams play the piano is quite the treat.

[@Korsaro1]

Thank you for the film, Ansel Adam was a pioneer but also a Genie

[@sbai4319]

Great movie . Interesting that even in that time it was very gear centric. But some good insights into Anders techniques.

[@wleon4068]

I learned a little about Ansel Adams when studying photography in college many years ago. Just goes to show you how far photographic technology has progressed since his days.

[@dont-want-no-wrench]

tech progresses, but every photographer starts from scratch.

[@Grilcantino]

Very interesting document

[@hemmohoving2558]

BEAUTIFUL!!

[@MikeDownes]

thanks for this upload, awe inspiring stuff ..

[@Malibucompany]

Great video Ansel on the Piano never saw that before

[@alfredtaylor1076]

Thank you for this.

[@tanha8178]

Thank you. I was surprised to see that the print version is like a A5 area on a (looks like) A4. Usually people tend to print large to show all the detail. I am no expert if this size print was due to the printing specs, or his personal choice, but the small print still have a deep distintive structure in it.

[@ayahtiiv]

thanks so much ,worth to watch

[@anthonyguidice2655]

I first saw this movie when I was studying photography at RIT. Ah yes, RIT - the great Technological Institute! The grand garage! A few Italian epithets come to mind. I'd have been better off studying ice hockey in Ecuador.

[@rechargedimpetus6644]

MASTER CLASS

[@WillN2Go1]

It's weird. Back up to the 1990s I could've used this information but I've never even heard of this film. If anyone is interested I can break down the lenses to 35mm (Full frame digital) equivalents. One thing I can share. The wide angle lenses aren't that wide angle. The Cooke Convertibles. These were interesting. They probably weren't coated so the contrast wasn't that good. Convertible meant they each had two focal lengths, but removing or changing one of the two lens arrays on opposite sides of the aperture shutter. Cooke lenses were invented in about 1890. Lenses had at least two pieces of glass in them. Cookes 'balanced' these so that the red-blue fringing mostly canceled out. With color film with the old lenses there'd be blue fringing on one side and red on the other. In B&W this showed up as fuzzy edges. I've printed 'professionally' shot negatives from the 40s and 50s from not very good lenses. They weren't sharp and there was noticeable distortion. So Adams always had the best equipment. I'd forgotten that his 4x5 is the same model I used for years. The best takeaway is that until the second generation iPad nothing was as amazingly sharp as an 8x10 color transparency. The negatives and prints were good too. 11:00 "Approach the quality of his original prints" .... ! I once worked on an art catalogue with Dave Gardner. He was Ansel Adams' printer. Catalogues, calendars, repro prints. He told me about the time as a test he printed (offset printing, like a book, not darkroom) some of Adams' images using Off Chart Masking. In Photoshop this effect is called Unsharp Masking. It sharpens the edges by adding contrast. He was worried that Adams would hate that it didn't look like his silver (darkroom) prints. So when Dave showed them to Ansel he first said this is just an experiment..... Adams loved them. Said, "I wish I could do this in my darkroom." (He actually could.) So when you see a show of Adams don't get too enamored that those prints are some kind of 'perfection.' They aren't, they're just the best Adams, or anyone else at the time, could do in the darkroom. Adams prefers the reproductions. The way the camera was set up for that beach/rock/wave shot was using Scheimpflug, where the camera back and front are at a slight angle. The plane of focus, normally vertical parallel to the camera back and front, is now tilted. You could keep an entire floor in sharp focus using this trick. A few inches above or below would be out of focus. And that camera platform on the car. I knew people who knew Adams. Almost all his photographs were within about 150 feet of that car. Adams prints used to be really difficult to make in a darkroom. You had to get your negative just right, first by using color filters to enhance. (Red, yellow, orange made the blue sky dark. These are Western skies. It'll be a rare day east of St Louis you'll get skies like these so in Michigan those filters didn't seem to do much), proper exposure. (If I got 75% of my exposures right it was a great day.) Processing the negative (there's a whole two volume novel in this. The villain is D-76 which Adams also used.) then printing: burning (more exposure) dodging (less). Adams slightly toned his prints with Selenium. I did this, but later partially sepia toned everything. Hours, days, weeks and weeks. You can make 50 prints in a day but you wouldn't. Today, using digital you can easily do all of this. Shoot color Raw, then you can convert to B&W but by keeping the color layers you can lighten or darken these to do what Adams did with color filters. Then you can dial up the contrast. Since about 1990 it's been easy. Of course Adams was a source of knowledge and inspiration for me. Love his photos. But it's Edward Weston I think that is a better role model. I always think of Adams as being at the peak of the mountain, there's no place to go. Weston was never interested in this, he was just looking around for anything that was compositionally interesting. Not better, just more useful.

[@GeoffBeattie]

Thanks for the information, very interesting.

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

Interesting to listen to the master himself. Of course this old movie is not at all communicating the true quality of AA's photographs. They have to be enjoyed in real life, secondarily from the many well printed books of his.

[@kennynvake4hve584]

A lot of work back then for just ONE photo...wow...and to think we have 100 mp cameras today..and some are not even happy with them...We click the camera, up load it..in another minute..then the whole world see's it in a micro second...

[@andrewthompson5609]

Those 100mp camera are still nothing compared to the resolution he was able to capture using those old cameras on 8x10 film.

[@stevjohnson6557]

There is no digital camera that exists that can match large format. Also, with large format you are able to make movements which you can't do in digital.

[@njpaddler]

You're comparing walnuts and watermelons- not at all comparable !

[@chromecodec]

anyone know the music playing around 12:00

[@kainuisocean]

More should be said about the courage and bravery of Ansel, hiking out into the wilderness with no cell phone or 911 services, or helicopters or park Rangers! That concept alone, made him great. I'm glad he carried a camera with him at least! : )

[@DPImageCapturing]

He was a master of the darkroom, not the photographer. It’s in his biography.

[@canturgan]

Photography was a rich man's pastime in those days.

[@njpaddler]

George Eastman brought it to the masses long before this, just as Ford did with the automobile.

[@wilson_law]

Omg.. those items...

[@wilson_law]

He's lucky he has a car.. i was about to wonder how he's going to carry those on a horseback.

[@andreasdoker9549]

schöner Beitrag, aber bei dem Hintergrund-Gedudel wird einem die Milch im Kühlschrank sauer...

[@stopthink9000]

Yeah...AI is getting really good! You shouldn't call these photos, that's borderline fraud.

[@mikejohnson2638]

very overrated photographer.

[@RobertKarlBerta]

What have you done? Haven't seen your name or photos anywhere. I knew him personally and he did influence some of my photography and he was very much a teacher but even more would challenge us to become even better photographers. I relished the times I spent with him and some of his best friends (very talented amateurs and professionals) as we all learned a lot from each other. I am 76 years old now and moved from all film based to mostly digital but those old skills apply just as much today.