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09/02/2006 10:18:40 AM · #1 |
I've heard it mentioned here and other places more than once that Ansel Adams reused the same cloud negatives to help a boring sky, but I can't find anything to support this. A google search turns up nothing but a brief mentions in forum discussions all over the web in the context of something else and no examples. Can anyone pinpoint where this info came from or provide examples?
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09/02/2006 10:26:15 AM · #2 |
sorry I can't help you there, but I can tell you he finished 11th in the Ansel Adams challenge and was DQ'd
this just cracks me up:) |
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09/02/2006 10:34:41 AM · #3 |
Originally posted by Elvis_L:
sorry I can't help you there, but I can tell you he finished 11th in the Ansel Adams challenge and was DQ'd
this just cracks me up:) |
that one cracked me up too! |
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09/02/2006 10:41:28 AM · #4 |
| I wonder if SC has a DQ template that says "Photographer is dead. Dead people can't submit to challenges." :) |
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09/02/2006 10:46:26 AM · #5 |
Originally posted by karmabreeze:
I've heard it mentioned here and other places more than once that Ansel Adams reused the same cloud negatives to help a boring sky, but I can't find anything to support this. A google search turns up nothing but a brief mentions in forum discussions all over the web in the context of something else and no examples. Can anyone pinpoint where this info came from or provide examples? |
Enough thread-jacking. Back on topic.
I did a google search and couldn't find any reference to the situation referred to. |
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09/02/2006 10:56:38 AM · #6 |
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
I did a google search and couldn't find any reference to the situation referred to. |
Nor could I. I wonder what you searched for, karmabreeze, to find what you did? I'd be interested to see what you came up with, even if it wasn't too relevant. Might help. |
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09/02/2006 10:59:01 AM · #7 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
I did a google search and couldn't find any reference to the situation referred to. |
Nor could I. I wonder what you searched for, karmabreeze, to find what you did? I'd be interested to see what you came up with, even if it wasn't too relevant. Might help. |
my search criteria:
"ansel adams" "same clouds"
And the idea was based on things I've seen mentioned here a couple times. I know I never would have thought it up myself.
I also submitted a request to snopes.com once it became obvious I wasn't going to find anything concrete.
Message edited by author 2006-09-02 11:00:39.
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09/02/2006 11:09:49 AM · #8 |
It's too anecdotal, but still interesting when someone posts:
"I read Uncle Ansel and he said keep some good cloud negs handy. That's fine but it seems awful hard to to get the composite print right and soon people start noticing the same clouds in all your photos."
Wonder if it's in his autobiography, and if anyone has that handy, if they could skim-check. :)
edit: add more quote
Message edited by author 2006-09-02 11:10:43. |
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09/02/2006 05:48:51 PM · #9 |
Bump - anyone else have any sources or info or whatnot to contribute?
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09/02/2006 06:08:22 PM · #10 |
I read the Alinder biography and it had some notes about the F64 group. Some of the things I remember are the rejection of pictorialism and embracing realistic photography. Orange filters were acceptable; red filters were not.
Adams published photography technique books; perhaps in one of these there might be more information about his printing techniques. I'm not sure these are still in print. The fine arts library here has some of the books but for in-library use only.
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09/02/2006 06:11:58 PM · #11 |
If anyone has a copy of The Negative or The Print I'm sure the answer would be in one of those. The reason I say this is that I read most of both of those books about a year ago and I think there was some mention of sandwiching negatives together.
Also, you could PM Bear_Music and I bet he would know.
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09/02/2006 06:22:48 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by justin_hewlett:
Also, you could PM Bear_Music and I bet he would know. |
This is the best advice, except he's mostly on the road for a couple of weeks. I have a copy of The Print somewhere ...
Message edited by author 2006-09-02 18:25:11. |
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09/02/2006 06:41:35 PM · #13 |
Is this relating to his "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico" print?
If so:
From "Ansel Adams: Some Thoughts About Ansel And About Moonrise", by Mary Street Alinder (Copyright 1999 Alinder Gallery):
"Moonrise was made on a typical Ansel trip to the Southwest in the fall of 1941 combining two commercial assignments: one for the U.S. Department of the Interior at Carlsbad Caverns and the other for the U.S. Potash Company. Accompanying Ansel were his son, Michael, and his good friend, Cedric Wright. The trip was a grand, meandering one, tailored to show eight year old Michael the sights of the Southwest. After a few days exploring Death Valley, the Grand Canyon and Canyon de Chelly, they decided to photograph about Santa Fe.
"Driving back to their hotel following an unsuccessful day of picture making in the Chama Valley, Ansel glanced to his left and saw a fantastic event. The sky was illuminated by brightly-lit clouds in the east and the white crosses in the cemetery of the old adobe church seemed to glow from within. He nearly crashed the car as he screeched to a halt in the roadside ditch, dashed out, yelling at Michael and Cedric to find the tripod, the camera, the meter, etc.
"Ansel rushed to assemble and mount the 23.5 inch component of his Cooke Series XV lens on his 8 x 10-inch view camera loaded with Ansco Isopan film and find the Wratten G filter. All was in place, but he could not find his Weston light meter. He remembered that the moon reflects 250 foot candles and he based his exposure upon that fact. He quickly computed a setting of 1/60 at f/8, but with the addition of the filter it became 1/20 at f/8. To achieve the same exposure with greater depth of field he stopped the lens to f/32 and released the shutter for one second. He prepared to make a second exposure for insurance. Dramatically, the light faded forever from the foreground.
"Moonrise, the negative, was far from perfect. It took me two years to convince Ansel to make a 'straight' print of Moonrise. He printed it without his customary darkroom manipulation as a teaching tool to show the basic information contained within the negative. Comparing this print with a fine print, one is struck by the immense work and creativity necessary for Ansel to produce what he believed to be the best interpretation of the negative. His final, expressive print is not how the scene looked in reality, but rather how it felt to him emotionally.
"Moonrise was Ansel's most difficult negative of all to print. Though he kept careful records of darkroom information on Moonrise, each time he set up the negative, he would again establish the procedure for this particular batch of prints because papers and chemicals were always variables not constants. After determining the general exposure for the print, he gave local exposure to specific areas. Using simple pieces of cardboard, Ansel would painstakingly burn in (darken with additional light from the enlarger) the sky, which was really quite pale with streaks of cloud throughout. He was careful to hold back a bit on the moon. The mid-ground was dodged (light withheld), though the crosses have been subtly burned in. This process took Ansel more than two minutes per print of intricate burning and dodging. Ansel created Moonrise with a night sky, a luminous moon and an extraordinary cloud bank that seems to reflect the moon's brilliance. Moonrise is sleight of hand. Moonrise is magic."
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09/02/2006 07:49:39 PM · #14 |
here you go...
cloud negative
edit to add text... looks like he talked about others doing it but did not himself :0)
--------
You were not aware, for example, of the work of your 19th-century predecessors-western landscape photographers like Carleton Watkins and Timothy O'Sullivan. And you disliked the painters of the American sublime-Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran, for instance. Is this a fair assessment of Ansel Adams at that time?
Yes, that's really pretty good. I had seen a lot of the early photographs, but I thought they were pretty dismal. I remember quite a collection of Watkinses in Yosemite-big 20-by-24-inch prints. The thing that bothered me was that if the emulsion couldn't pick up white clouds against a bright sky, they would print ones from a special cloud negative. It seemed a little phony. Then I began to see more of the old stuff, but it wasn't influencing me. The best photographs of Yosemite were by a man named George Fiske. I printed some pictures from his 11-by-14-inch glass-plate negatives -absolutely gorgeous!
Message edited by author 2006-09-02 19:52:46.
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