- If you're a photographer, chances are you're
familiar with Ansel Adams. Even though he died almost 40 years ago, he's widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in landscape photography. And if you've been to one
of these national parks or used this tool in Photoshop, he's one of the ones to thank for that. I got really interested in
his work several weeks ago and I knew there was
something very unique about it that I couldn't quite put my finger on. So I knew it was time to hit the books and take a deep dive into this
guy's history and process, and I learned some really
interesting things. So today, I wanna break down
his unique visual style, the process he went through
to achieve that style, and the overarching reasons
for why he even did that in the first place. So let's start out by talking about Ansel Adams' visual
style, what you can see just looking at his
catalog of photographs. Starting out with subject matter, just the subjects that he chose to shoot and when and where he chose to shoot them. Looking through his work, you'll pretty quickly realize that he's a big fan of the mountains. Hell yeah. And a lot of his work
aims to convey the scale and power of those mountainous areas. He liked to photograph the atmosphere interacting with the landscape so like storms and low clouds where you have those big layers of clouds shrouding mountain peaks. So a lot of the titles of his photographs include like "Winter
Storm" or "Clearing Storm" because a lot of the time,
he would shoot during or right after a storm to get those really dramatic conditions. A lot of his work also showcases the unique textures of the natural world, whether that's massive
landscapes and mountains or the smaller details like a single tree or even a single leaf,
or in some cases, both, by having a small detail in the foreground of a massive landscape. Having that close foreground in the frame is one of his many techniques to convey the massive scale
of landscapes in his photos. And this is a big compositional
theme of his work. Another technique he'll frequently use to convey scale through composition is placing the horizon line
really high in the frame. This way, whether it's a shot
of a waterfall or a mountain, that landscape appears
to really tower above you in the frame. The horizon line is
one of many, many lines that you'll notice throughout his work, whether it's leading lines to frame a subject in the composition or parallel lines to create
an interesting effect in the frame. He also not necessarily frequently, but very deliberately uses negative space throughout his work. And oftentimes, it's created
by very dramatic lighting that causes massive areas of the frame to fall off into shadow. Dramatic lighting and intense contrast are staples of his photography, almost all of his photographs
include a full tonal range from white to black and
everything in between. So now that you know some
of the key characteristics that make his photography so unique, let's talk about the process
he actually went through to achieve that style,
and it's quite a process. Adams shot almost all of
his landscape photography on medium and large format cameras. On a large format camera,
you have two elements. The front one contains the lens and the back one holds film slides. And there's a bellows in between, which is this kind of
accordion looking thing that moves the lens further
and closer to the film slides allowing you to focus the image. These film slides are absolutely massive. On a large format camera,
either four by five inches or eight by 10 inches, and on a small or medium format
camera, a six by six square. Wait a minute, four by five and square, is Ansel Adams the father of Instagram? Ansel. Ah, he's got 63K, learn
something new every day. Shooting on a large film slide like this would give him a wider
image with way more detail. And he wanted a lot of
detail in his photos. He shot at a super narrow aperture to keep the entire frame
completely tack sharp, even helping to start Group F/64 in 1932. And Group F/64 was literally
like a group of photographers based on like the West Coast who like to shoot at F/64, think like German Roamers but 1932. In addition to maintaining
as much sharp detail throughout the frame as possible, he also shot in black and white to maintain as much contrast from black to white as possible. And he really brought that contrast out in the dark room after photo was taken. He's known for spending
hours in the dark room, meticulously working on each photo, and he dodged and burned
all of his landscape photos. And these are techniques
that he didn't invent but definitely took to the next level. Basically he would use an
enlarger, which is a light source and a print with the original negative from the camera in between, and the light source would shine light through that negative, developing
it onto the print paper. To dodge a photo, you would just use like literally a homemade
cardboard tool to block light from a specific area of the frame, and because less light is
developing that part of the print, it's gonna be a little bit darker or you could burn that photo by using a piece of cardboard with a little hole in
it to add extra light to a specific area, making it brighter. Even for those of us who
have never used a dark room, the terms "dodge" and "burn"
probably sound pretty familiar because of the tools in Photoshop that allow you to do
basically the same thing. A lot of photographers at the
time would use these tools to make like subtle
corrections to their images, but Adams went absolutely
ham with these techniques, using them to correct for
lighting throughout the scene and add a ton of vivid
contrast into his photos. The exposure of different
elements in the scene was really important to Adam, so much so that he even
developed the zone system which ranked different
materials you might have in a photograph from zero to 10, based on how bright or dark
they should appear in a photo. This gave a point of
reference whether on a shoot or in the dark room to be
able to expose different parts of the scene accurately, and
it's even still used today for exposure and color grading. So why did he do all of this, right? Like, why did he shoot and
process in the dark room so meticulously and specifically? Well, the answer to that lies in a term that he actually coined
himself which is visualization. Visualization in a photography context basically just means seeing
the final image in your head before you take the photo
and then using your camera and a dark room to
bring that image to life and show the person looking
at the photo what you saw, not what your camera saw. Adams really believed in
the intention and the craft behind a photograph. A lot of the time, he would only take one photo
of a particular composition, just one, like he knew
he was gonna get it right the first time. And that emphasis on seeing
the photo before you take it is a great reminder
probably for most of us and definitely for myself. Because I tend to show up to a spot I'm gonna take some photos
and just spray and pray, you could say, just take a thousand photos and then go through in editing
and find the five good ones. In short, his work and his process kind of showed people for the first time that photography is an art, and not just a process of documentation. In his own words, "You don't take a
photograph, you make it." And he made people appreciate not only landscape photography, but the landscapes themselves. You can't make a video about Ansel Adams without mentioning that he was
a very avid conservationist. He lobbied Congress to
create more national parks and is largely responsible for the creation of Kings
Canyon National Park in 1939. And he did a lot of his
work in the Yosemite Valley so the Ansel Adams Wilderness and Mount Ansel Adams in
Yosemite are named after him. His focus on conservation was
actually pretty controversial at the time with most other photographers and just people in general thinking that the socioeconomic
issues of the time were way more important. Henri Cartier-Bresson, who was like a massively
influential photographer at the time, even said, quote, "The world is falling to pieces, and all Adams and Weston
photograph is rocks and trees." George Weston was like
another landscape photographer at the time. Looking back, 70 years later, we realize that he took landscape photos to show people that the
earth was that important, was one of the primary
issues and still is, and that it's worth capturing and experiencing true untouched wilderness while it still exists. So even though he
photographed static subjects, Ansel Adams showed us that photography is a lot more
than just pointing a camera and pressing a button, and that the earth is a lot
more than just rocks and trees - As a photographer, I believe that creative photography when practiced in terms
of its inherent qualities may also reveal endless
horizons of meaning. - I learned a hell of
a lot making this video and I hope you learned
something new from watching it. And if you did, do feel
free to show your support by leaving a like on the video,
sharing it with your friends or even subscribing to my channel, I upload new videos just
like this every single week. But that's all for now, keep creating, and I'll see you in the next week. (bright music)
The moment I saw the Kodak overlays I'm like....ehhh.....no
Couple things I noticed:
Portra borders
Calling sheet film slides
Dodging darkens the image
Burning brightens the image
Then I stopped watching. He did enough research to sound smart, but not enough to be correct.
In the YT description - "also I know someone will leave an angry comment because I used the Porta 400 overlays for this"
Eyeroll. No, I simply won't waste my time viewing any other genius insights, thanks. Too Stupid, Can't Watch. And "Porta", smh