I've just finished reading Ansel Adams's The Negative and Christopher James's The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes. Adams appears to have believed that a photographer should know with some precision, when he composes, meters and sets his aperture and shutter speed, what the eventual print will look like. That belief seems to underly the Zone System, at least in its full-blown cradle to grave/composition to print, methodology. In other words, implicit in the methodology is a philosophy about photography.

One of the things that I find attractive about James's book is that the underlying philosophy of at least parts of it is much freer. This is particularly evident in his discussions about pinhole and Holga cameras. I also have the sense that many of the images in the book were created through a process of tinkering and experimentation. Reading his book reminded me of when I got my first chemistry set.

How many people who participate in this forum make photographs in the deliberate and methodical manner that Adams prescribes? Is his apparent claim, that adoption of the Zone System largely eliminates unpredictability when making images with film, born out?

For how many is the road from composition forward a process of tinkering and experiment that results, at the end of the day, in a print that was unforeseen, or only partially foreseen, at the outset. If you are in the latter category, is that a result of imperfect craft or a deliberate choice? If it is a choice, do you use the Zone System and, if so, what parts of it and for what purpose?

If you use an alternative process, do you use some kind of Zone System equivalent? Is that even possible, given that a degree of unpredictability seems to be inherent in some alternative processes? Or is experimentation a central part of mucking about with alternative image capture (e.g. daguerreotypes) and alternative printing processes?