Pre-visualizing your photos like Ansel Adams

Have you read Ansel Adams first book where he talks about pre-visualizing your photos? Ansel talks about visualization being the cornerstone and the most important factor of photography. Do you think that rule of thumb still remains today with half the photos pre-finished life is spent in Photoshop?

Do you know how long Adams spent in the darkroom working on ONE print? Photoshop, darkroom work = same, same.

Yes, it applies.

I think he was referring to B/W images, where previsualization is an indispensable first step. The need to not react to colors, but only to luminosity values as compositional elements is a hard- won skill for me, and it is only when I can "see" the image I think is there that I can begin to address the technical issues needed to realize it. And post processing is a part of that process, be it with film or digital media.

hghlndr6 wrote: Do you know how long Adams spent in the darkroom working on ONE print? Photoshop, darkroom work = same, same.

Yes, it applies.

I'll bite, how long?

MYoung wrote:

hghlndr6 wrote: Do you know how long Adams spent in the darkroom working on ONE print? Photoshop, darkroom work = same, same.

Yes, it applies.

I'll bite, how long?

Anywhere from several hours to several days.

hghlndr6 wrote:

MYoung wrote:

hghlndr6 wrote: Do you know how long Adams spent in the darkroom working on ONE print? Photoshop, darkroom work = same, same.

Yes, it applies.

I'll bite, how long?

Anywhere from several hours to several days.

Really? Several days on the same image? that is a long time. I guess I don't understand how they processed film back in the day. Honestly I thought they dunked the print into the solution and just hung it up to dry, and that was it. Interesting.

If you're interested, here is a detailed example of the process that goes into making a quality print in the darkroom. Ansel Adams methods were similar.

Which is the best book by Ansel Adams?

Soccer Mom wrote:

hghlndr6 wrote:

MYoung wrote:

hghlndr6 wrote: Do you know how long Adams spent in the darkroom working on ONE print? Photoshop, darkroom work = same, same.

Yes, it applies.

I'll bite, how long?

Anywhere from several hours to several days.

Really? Several days on the same image? that is a long time. I guess I don't understand how they processed film back in the day. Honestly I thought they dunked the print into the solution and just hung it up to dry, and that was it. Interesting.

Oh yeah you could easily spend a lot of time prepping a negative before printing it. Really depended on what you wanted from it. The only people who just exposed, dunked, and hung photos were in the movies, because they are perfect. But the actually Hollywood promo photos had teams of people dodging , scraping, and dying the negs. Those ones from the 40s that people took several days to get like that before printing. Now you can do it all in a couple of hours, or minutes in programs. Got to love that part of modern photography.

With B&W I usually am thinking about it before I take the picture(s), if the scene has some good contrast that I think will work well for B&W. Sometimes the weather even makes a difference, if it's hazy I may not bother to shoot B&W film that day but wait for a clear day to get better light and shadows.

I don't know if I previsualize as much as I see something that to me looks like a potential photograph, that's the best way I can explain it, I just see it.

I don't do much post processing either way, film or digital. I often don't do anything more than put the media card in my computer and look at the photos - if they look good onscreen and printed that's it; sometimes I might adjust brightness or contrast as needed.

In the darkroom I've occasionally spent a lot of time on a particular print but if I got a proper exposure and have a good quality negative, once I've determined exposure time there may not be much else to do but zap some light thru it, run the print thru the chemistry and rinse and squeegee. If I have a more dense negative I might have to keep adjusting the exposure time or do more dodging or burning (if I have a really thin negative forget it, I should have gotten a better exposure!). I like to dodge because I like to play with my vintage dodgette set but for practical purposes I wouldn't to have to try to spend hours on every photo.

I have the Ansel Adams series of three books on the Negative, the Print, and I can't think of the name of the third - but I haven't looked at them in years and keep meaning to hunt them out. I think now that I've done darkroom work they might be more meaningful. The most recent book of Adams I got was a collection of Polaroid images he had done by other photographers, as he was working with Edwin Land in the development of Polaroid cameras and technology.