What did AA actually see when he “came upon this extraordinary scene”?

[cowanw]

Weston preferred the term "prevision", as used in this statement accompanying his 1930 exhibition at the Delphic Studios, New York:

"This is the approach: one must prevision and feel, BEFORE EXPOSURE,the finished print---complete in all values, in every detail---when focussing upon the camera ground glass. Then the shutter's release fixes for all time this image, this conception, never to be changed by afterthought, by subsequent manipulation. The creative force is released coincident with the shutter's release. There is no substitute for amazement felt, significance realized, at the TIME of EXPOSURE."

Edward Weston, 1930

(from, Edward Weston, "On Photography", Peter Bunnell, 1983, Peregrine Smith Books)

He must have a lot of previsions of that darn toilet bowl!

[Brian C. Miller]

He must have a lot of previsions of that darn toilet bowl!

Every time he sat down!

[cowanw]

Every time he sat down!

I just sh!t myself laughing

[Jeffrey Sipress]

OP, I don't know what you are trying to get at. I, like many landscape photographers here (including AA), occasionally happen across 'extraordinary' scenes, and almost immediately begin the mental process of interpreting it and mechanically and chemically capturing it to give us the material we need to realize out interpretations. Our prints rarely look like the 'real' scene in front of us. What do you do?

"What people are referring to as pre-visualisation is actually just visualisation. It is already in advance of doing something so the pre- is superfluous. If you read The Negative, The Camera and The Print, you will see that Adams only uses visualisation, not pre-visualisation."

Thank you, Steve. I've gotten used to everyone using the wrong term. It's kinda like the term 'hot water heater'. If the water was already hot, you wouldn't need the appliance. It's a water heater. But my favorite is 'Free Gift"!

[KJ Smith]

RE: Moonrise


"Playboy:
Did you know at the time that you had taken a memorable photograph?

Adams:
I knew it was an important image. I visualized this wonderful image and I just hoped I had captured it. When I started to develop it, I began to worry. First I was going to give it a little less than normal minus development. But I figured that if I did, it wouldn't hold the shadows' contrast in the foreground. I gave it a water bath development. I had worried that I had seriously underexposed the negative. I nearly panicked until I found that I hadn't; I'd gotten it! The first print showed some scattered clouds in the sky that weren't very favorable to the over-all scene. They weakened the feeling. So I kept printing the sky darker until I had it, the image I had seen in my minds eye."

From the Playboy Interview, May 1993

[walter23]

Yeah, I agree, it's obvious that neither picture shows exactly what the scene looked like at the time, but I'm sure a lot of us can put ourselves there and imagine what the late dusk light on the town must have looked like, with the moon rising above those clouds. It obviously wouldn't look like the straight contact print.

A full moon rises as the sun is setting. For the full moon to be that high in the sky, the sun must've down for about 1/2 hour or more. I think it was fairly dark at the time. He overexposed the neg to get good detail on the ground. That made the sky look light, as it does in the straight print. He then over developed the neg to increase the contrast on the ground, and especially to increase the values on the town, which lightened the sky even more. Then, in the darkroom, he burned the sky down to get it back to what it was when he saw it.

Just my guess.

Peter

[rdenney]

...From the Playboy Interview, May 1993

Well, that would have been a neat trick, considering he died in 1984.

Rick "that would be 1983" Denney

[KJ Smith]

Well, that would have been a neat trick, considering he died in 1984.

Rick "that would be 1983" Denney

You are correct, my bad.

KJ "It's the first time I screwed up this week" Smith,

or KJ "I only got it for the articles" Smith

your choice.

[Robert Hughes]

Or did he "post-visualize" that interview?

[KJ Smith]

Or did he "post-visualize" that interview?

I couldnt remember that much detail 40 yrs later. Hell, I couldn't remember the magazine date 5 sec. later.


Like all great stories, I am sure it changed over time.

Makes very little difference.

Great Photographer, Great Photograph..... even if it was a grab shot.....