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.
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?
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.
"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.
Brett Simison
http://www.brettsimison.com/
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?
Brian Vuillemenot
And who would win in a fistfight ... Ansel or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
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!
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
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.
Ciao!
Gordon Moat Photography
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).
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