For Graham: It's straight! The fog bank hides the true horizon and the shore line is very complex and receding and the gravel bar is also at an angle. Should I tilt it to compensate? I would prefer not to do so.
Ha-ha! Wonderful! 'm 'fraid there ain't no camels, doones or kwaint costoomes here in Awstin, Texas. Didja like my Texas drawl? No, there's East Texas for pine trees (300 miles). The Hill Country - November is best (100 miles) Or there's West Texas and mountains (500+ miles) South is . . well, the Gulf of Mexico. There are a few run-down towns with interesting wooden architecture but as far as landscapes goes . . zip! I guess I'll have to dig the old flowers out again . . . It's that or back to nudes, and I've have a belly-full of that one already! Remember that Texas is basically sea-bed, seeded with cedar trees from bird droppings that fled the 1907 Galveston hurricane. The birds fled, not the guano. Whereas you have Mother Nature banging on your door!
We are in full agreement, Graham! Photographers need to know the basics and pre-visualize, otherwise they are working blind. Photographers blind - ha - that's an amusing thought! You still got to know what your doing!
It is amusing to see my fellow photography club members travel far and wide to get "great" landscapes - while only two of us make local landscapes. Is that not strange thing - despite living in a photogenic area, envied by many! It seems that the novelty factor accounts for a lot in aesthetics - makes photo-tourism a big business. Pay a person in a third world country to dress up for you and you have an instant winner. Pay someone to parade a camel on the edge of a dune and there's another winner for back home!
So not much interest in photography in your area? That's a disappointment, indeed! Any sand dunes, camels or quaint costumes for dress up? Perhaps Ansel slept at a local hotel? Man, you gotta dig deep! :)
Spoken like a true pro! Yes, Ansel always said he does not "take" a photograph - he said he "makes" one. As we do today. Very few images out of the camera are breathtaking (the technology is not there yet as ALL cameras STILL read everything as 18% gray). As I live in an artistically deprived area, I am not likely to see the enthusiasm you have for people wanting to learn more. They'd be banging my door down if I taught "How to drink more beer in one night." The "art" in photography will always be a debate, as you say. One man's muck is another man's brass, as they say in Yorkshire!
I do still think, however, that in order to have a better 'feel' for photography, that you need to understand the fundamentals and relationships between light, apertures, shutter speeds and lenses. It affords a better mental picture of what you're doing and assists in seeing the finished product in the mind's eye. I know exactly what my images will look like as soon as I release the shutter.
And, digital gives you the option of instant preview, so you can stand there all day erasing images and re-shooting until you get it right. Film never afforded us that luxury! You had to know what you were doing, especially if commissioned. If you got it wrong, well . . . .
Graham, I would agree that digital has its weakness but I also recognize it's great strengths. I would not go back to film! Some do, and proclaim it's virtues over digital. I shake my head because they usually compare apples to oranges (like large format to small sensor.)
Digital is well embraced now, but you would have to agree that, still, there are better or worse practitioners of the black art of photography! Even with image processing software, one can not, convincingly, turn a sows ear into a silk purse. However, we need photoshop the same way Ansel needed his darkroom! Ansel was well practiced and superbly skilled about capturing information on his film, but then, the real image, he admitted to creating afterward.
With photoshop and post processing it is no different. Perhaps the inspiration comes at the moment of releasing the shutter, but the real image is created afterward in post - providing you have been skilled in capturing the information you needed! That's photography! Albeit, one has to bear in mind the difference between image enhancement and image manipulation and what is appropriate, good technique, tasteful and artistic.
The truth of the matter is that people are still as mystified about photography as ever! 'Though everyone can take a picture, in digital, as in the the Kodak Brownie days, there is a difference between that and photography as art - always has been!
It appears to me that there is actually a hot market for photography classes, tutorials, photo excursions and seminars. Maybe many photographers do not actually feel as "self appointed professional" as they may proclaim? I do agree with you that there are people that will output respectable images using automatic camera settings. However, it is their problem if they feel satisfied with that and the occasional "keeper!"
Not likely that we will see a future piece of equipment that can take an image as the mind's eye! Therefore, there will continue to be a lot of fun, skillful practice and creativity for photographers. Of course, that does not mean we will all agree with each others photographic styles, expression and technique.
Beautiful reflections and tones, Eb! You're right, sometimes the landscape can distort the lines and the restricted view you get in the image makes it look crooked. Dave.
Eb, you take me back 25 years. How refreshing that someone else knows and appreciates Adams' "Zone System". I was beginning to think I was the only one left. Most photographers who read this will have no clue what you are talking about. Yes, Ansel did work wonders by combining his techniques, i.e. push/pull processing and correct placement of tonal values. His usual dynamic range was indeed 6 values (Zones 3-8), except for black cats in cellars at midnight and arctic foxes in a blizzard. Adams was indeed a master in the darkroom.
I was mortified when I first saw the extremely limited range of digital cameras. Try taking a picture in the Texas summer sunlight and you'll know what I mean. They have about the same tolerance as Kodachrome 25. The maxim used to be: expose for shadows with B&W film and for highlights with color film (except for Kodachrome). Ektachrome was the film equivalent of PS in those days, i.e. it was more tolerant whereas Kodachrome had a tolerance of 1/2 stop!
However, in both media, a blown out highlight remains a blown out highlight. These days, photography is more about mastering PhotoShop than mastering photographic principles. PS will insert a 'highlight where there is not even an exposure! What % of images here have been run through PS, I wonder?
The enjoyment of photography in the 60s and 70 was getting to grips with first principles and the darkroom, which I do so miss. Now it's a case of taking otherwise dreadful exposures and 'rescuing' the result under PS - and what a phenomenal piece of software PS has turned out to be.
I too have Lightroom and Silver Efex though I find them more of 'toys' to play with, preferring to use my knowledge to create a decent image rather than the 'magic' of electronic manipulation. That said, the digital age has opened photography to everyone who considered the art WAS magical and beyond their grasp. Now anyone can point-and-shoot and turn out an excellent image with a few clicks in PS. This is why the photography studio and photography classes have fallen by the wayside. Everyone and his dog is now a self-appointed 'professional'. But, give them a manual LEICA, a roll of FP4 and a darkroom and they're lost at sea. I wonder what the next 25 years will bring? Probably a gadget that takes an image of exactly what we see before us, and where's the FUN in that?
Graham, I'm an admirer of the great Ansel Adams and give him full credit. But to say no one can reproduce his work is a stretch. Even Ansel could not reproduce his own work! His developing style and judgment changed considerably when reprinting his own work - despite the fact he had extensive notes to guide him.
Modern equipment, although it takes a computer to translate light into 1s and 0s, is no different (unless you are referring to automated camera functions.) We still have a lens and a box. Agreed!
The art of the zone system is in that it helps realize (technologically) pre-visualized tonal targets. Some values are realized by exposure and some by development plus exposure and some are further adjusted in the darkroom.
Ansel also took full advantage of the large format quality and the latest in technology, as it came along. He also promoted a lot of technological development and would certainly have embraced digital.
The key differences with digital vs. film, when applying the zone system, is that you are not able to achieve tonal targets through development and that you have a restricted dynamic range compared to B&W film. In the digital realm, your closest equivalent to chemical (over time) development is curves adjustment in post processing. Using curves, you can push highlights, but you can not pull highlights which are blown. With film, you can usually pull highlights into the range of photo paper.
For a competent exposure in film, using zone system, you place detailed shadow values at zone 3 and take a reading of your highlights. Assuming you may want these at zone 9 (the maximum your paper can handle) and their reading says zone 12, your task is to pull those highlights into range with development. Of course you would have done extensive testing to know what is entailed. Alternatively, if highlight readings are at zone 8, you may wish to push them to zone 9 by development.
The same thing could be done with digital curves and exposure adjustment, but in post processing providing you have captured all the information you will need. That is why I get all the information first (evaluative metering with exposure compensation works fine) and then place it in 9 zone values later.
However, if you do not care to get all the information and wish to precisely choose what to drop out, then spot metering and applying an understanding of the number of zones you have to work with is essential.
Ah, see what technology has done for us? We speak gobbledegook! How come, with all this fancy equipment now available, NOBODY can replicate the work Ansel Adams did 80 years ago with the simplest of cameras, lenses and darkroom equipment? That's why he developed (ha!) the "Zone System", which has stood the test of time whatever the medium, even digital. An image is an image and cameras have not changed much, apart from the CCD gadget. Way back when, we used things called skill and eyes. Those halcyon days, alas now gone.
Read "The Zone System?" Actually I wrote it - ha ha! I have read Minor White's tome and used it extensively when in fine arts school in early 70's and shooting a lot of 4x5. Of course I gave up photography soon after. I do try to apply a zonal approach in B&W and post process. At the camera stage, in digital, it does not make sense. Get all the information (exposing to the right.) Take two or more exposures if the dynamic range is excessive. Process by placing local values wherever you want, on zones. Eb
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