Can you imagine..........

[ignatiusjk]

Can you imagine Ansel Adams using a scanner and printer to print "Moonrise Hernandez" I just can't see him doing that.I honestly think Ansel may have second thoughts about printing with a scanner/printer.I think he would miss the feeling of watching the image coming up in the Devo.

[windpointphoto]

Yeah I can. I believe in one of his last interviews he said he thought the future of digital was very exciting. Was he using the same equipment for his last photo as his first?

[Charles Carstensen]

Without a doubt he would be into high resolution scanning and inkjet printing. I believe Adams was a strong proponent of advancing technology. He would be even more creative with the equipment we have now.

[bsimison]

"However, very few photographic manufacturing technicians comprehend photography as an art form, or understand the kinds of equipment the creative person requires. The standards are improving in some areas, however: in my opinion modern lenses approach the highest possible levels of perfection, and today's negative and printing materials are superior to anything I have known and used in the past. I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop."

-Ansel Adams, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs, page 59.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

I can't imagine it, because it would require AA to rise from the dead and somehow find his way out of his coffin. ;)

What good are these "What would Ansel do?" threads anyway? If you don't like digital printing, don't do it. Just don't try to elevate the value of your own darkroom prints above the level of digital ones by claiming that Ansel would never do digital, so therefore darkroom prints are better. As was quoted above, Ansel welcomed and embraced new photographic technologies. To him, the quality of the final print was most important, not how he arrived at it. Please let Ansel rest in peace!!!

On a related note, what would Ansel say about the war in Iraq? ;)

[paulr]

And who would win in a fistfight ... Ansel or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

[Vick Vickery]

I can imagine AA using all of the newest technology in any era...he did so often! He was quick to embrace the 'blad when it first came out (probably given an early one by Victor!) and was among the first to embrace Polaroid, both of which he used to make many outstanding images. Yes, I think he'd have had a ball with computers and digital images!

[Brad Rippe]

I see you are new to this forum, where the analog/digital debate has been raging without resolution (not optical resolution) for years. See the archives.

I've come to the conclusion that digital and analog photography are simply different methods of communicating with light. All forms of capturing images are valid, how can they not be? I used to teach photography, and one experiment I would demonstrate is making photograms using objects placed on newspaper in the sunlight. Kind of like giving the news a tan.


All the methods discussed on this forum are extremely interesting, but the question you might ask is not what would Ansel do, but what will you do. I've used film from way back, first camera in 1963, large format since 1973, but this digital stuff really is a whole other world. Is it better? I'd simply say its different.

BTW, welcome to this forum.

-Brad

[Gordon Moat]

He did some pretty cool work with Polaroid materials, so I would guess he would enjoy playing with new technology. Maybe a better way to speculate would be on what equipment he might choose.
:rolleyes:

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[Skorzen]

It seems to me that AA was very much interested in being able to control what would be the final image (wasn't that why he developed the zone system after all?). So I don't doubt that he could have embraced the digital process. That being said I personally enjoy doing things the old fashioned way and don't see myself printing digitally, maybe Adams would be the same way but I don't think that it is fair to say that Adams would have dismissed the digital process (wasn't his complaint with color that there wasn't enough control? Digital solves that problem).

[Alan Rabe]

Yes Ansel did embrace new technology as it arrived. But he didn't use it until it was ready. For example when color film came out Ansel took a lot of color negatives. However he never printed them until the print materials was good enough both archivally and image quality. I suspect he would react the same to digital, when he felt it was up to par with his analog work he would probably use it.

[Brian Ellis]

Of all the old "classic" photographers, Adams was probably the worst for you to select in terms of one who wouldn't be likely to use the most current equipment and methods of making photographs. Based on everything I know about him, which is about as much as one can learn from reading and talking with a few people who knew him well, I think he'd probably leap at experimenting with a digital workflow and, as Alan says, using it if it met his standards. There are others who I can't imagine using digital under any circumstances - Edward Weston comes to mind. I just can't picture someone whose darkroom equipment consisted basically of a light bulb and a contact printing frame even trying a digital camera or scanner.

[Robbie Shymanski]

"Do not permit yourself to become a slave to eqipment, materials, or methods, but learn to control and apply them to advantage."

Ansel Adams, "The Negative", p.71, 1968 ed.

[tim atherton]

Of all the old "classic" photographers, Adams was probably the worst for you to select in terms of one who wouldn't be likely to use the most current equipment and methods of making photographs.

Yep - from the introduction to his iconic book "The Negative" (he surely couldn't have chosen a more obvious or telling place to make this statement):



Ansel wrote "I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them."

Ansel Adams 1981

[roteague]

I can't imagine it, because it would require AA to rise from the dead and somehow find his way out of his coffin. ;)

Right. No one can say what Ansel would or would not have done. It is one thing to envision something that may come to pass, quite another to see how it really plays out - reality check.

[Bruce Watson]

Yawn....

[tim atherton]

And who would win in a fistfight ... Ansel or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?


ansel

http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Mahmoud+Ahmadinejad&word2=Ansel+Adams

[Vaughn]

Since digital photography is (IMO) an whole new media, I think AA would use it to explore new possibilities, rather than use it to reprint older work.

vaughn

[Mark Sawyer]

And who would win in a fistfight ... Ansel or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Personally, I'm holding out for an "Ansel Adams vs. Predator" movie...

[Marko]

Like Brian said, Ansel is probably the worst - or, depending on one's viewpoint - the best person to quote about this subject.

But the larger question is: why? Who cares what an established figure, a deceased one at that, would have to say about new technologies. Most of them were wrong anyway, as history can amply prove. Here's just a few examples:


This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.

--William Orton, president of Western Union, 1876

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?

— Harry Warner, Warner Bros., 1927.


There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.

— Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment, 1977.


I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.

Thomas Watson, IBM, 1943


640K ought to be enough for anybody.

— Bill Gates, 1981.

:D

[Pat Hilander]

He would skip the scanning part because he would be using digital capture.

[Frank Bagbey]

I brought this up some time back, "What would Ansel Do". Simply put, Ansel would be interested in selling to museums and collectors. He could not sell a thing if the collectors thought he could rip off another 500 prints on his Epson printer. If any photographer does not believe that, just publish the fact you can print unlimited quantities of your photographs. See if you can get any museum takers or high-end collectors to buy your unlimited photographs.

It is an interesting debate, but ultimately there is no doubt a large print of Ansel's from the early days achieves what every photographer could hope for, moneywise and collectionwise. Can you name one photogapher who has achieved that by printing unlimited quantities of his images?

[tim atherton]

I brought this up some time back, "What would Ansel Do". Simply put, Ansel would be interested in selling to museums and collectors. He could not sell a thing if the collectors thought he could rip off another 500 prints on his Epson printer. If any photographer does not believe that, just publish the fact you can print unlimited quantities of your photographs. See if you can get any museum takers or high-end collectors to buy your unlimited photographs.

It is an interesting debate, but ultimately there is no doubt a large print of Ansel's from the early days achieves what every photographer could hope for, moneywise and collectionwise. Can you name one photogapher who has achieved that by printing unlimited quantities of his images?

Using an Epson printer (or or some other similar form of digital printing); and the production of unlimited numbers of prints are two quite different and separate things.

Plenty of photographers sell inkjet (or lightjet) prints through high end galleries and to museums (including William Eggleston, Irving Penn, Andreas Gursky and others).

Such prints are in the collections of everything from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to MoMA to the Victoria & Albert to etc etc. Some sell for exceedlingly high prices - hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. How many copies you can print is a fairly pointless red herring. Using a certain printing method or not doesn't necessarily have any bearing on price.

So the answer is that plenty of photographers have no problem getting the best prices for digital prints.

(it's the painters who have done well with unlimited copies - Mr. Kincaid has made a fortune of unlimited numbers of prints...)

[Matt Blaze]

I brought this up some time back, "What would Ansel Do". Simply put, Ansel would be interested in selling to museums and collectors. He could not sell a thing if the collectors thought he could rip off another 500 prints on his Epson printer. If any photographer does not believe that, just publish the fact you can print unlimited quantities of your photographs. See if you can get any museum takers or high-end collectors to buy your unlimited photographs.

It is an interesting debate, but ultimately there is no doubt a large print of Ansel's from the early days achieves what every photographer could hope for, moneywise and collectionwise. Can you name one photogapher who has achieved that by printing unlimited quantities of his images?

Absolutely. The ability to easily create unlimited identical copies obviously prevents creative artists from ever making a living and is a threat that must be stopped. For evidence, just look at how all the writers starved to death after the printing press was invented and how acting and directing ceased to be viable professions once cinema came about. Clearly, the only reason art ever has value is scarcity.

[Marko]

Not to mention all the musicians (and conductors) who starved after the invention of phonograph... :rolleyes:

Once upon a time in England, there lived a fellow named Nedd Ludd. He used to make an argument just like that... and the rest is history.

[windpointphoto]

I brought this up some time back, "What would Ansel Do". Simply put, Ansel would be interested in selling to museums and collectors. He could not sell a thing if the collectors thought he could rip off another 500 prints on his Epson printer. If any photographer does not believe that, just publish the fact you can print unlimited quantities of your photographs. See if you can get any museum takers or high-end collectors to buy your unlimited photographs.

It is an interesting debate, but ultimately there is no doubt a large print of Ansel's from the early days achieves what every photographer could hope for, moneywise and collectionwise. Can you name one photogapher who has achieved that by printing unlimited quantities of his images?

Why wouldn't I be able to make 500 prints of a negative in the darkroom? I didn't know there is a limit to a negative being printed except time and money. Did Ansel number his prints? If someone had said Hey Mr. Adams, We'll buy 500 prints of Moonrise for 10,000 dollars each, he'd have said no?

[Joanna Carter]

Don't forget, if you want to emulate the "individuality" of the darkroom print in Photoshop, all you have to do is to scan the neg/trannie, retouch the image but make no adjustments whatsoever and save this "negative". When anyone asks you for a print, simply open the file, do all the adjustments (contrast, burn, dodge, etc), print one copy and don't save the adjusted image. Next time, repeat the procedure et voilà, individual, handmade prints, every one just as individual as the last one.