Video of Ansel Adams' Story of Visualization Breakthrough

[Tin Can]

Featuring himself.

https://youtu.be/kxLCCZH6LOs

[cowanw]

I wonder why he had the red filter with him if he didn't ever know about using it until he was up there with his epiphany.:)

[Vaughn]

I wonder why he had the red filter with him if he didn't ever know about using it until he was up there with his epiphany.:)

Not exactly what AA was talking about, LOL. He knew the properties of the red filter, obviously, since he decided to switch from yellow to red...knowledge and practice fueled his epiphany.

[cowanw]

Not exactly what AA was talking about, LOL. He knew the properties of the red filter, obviously, since he decided to switch from yellow to red...knowledge and practice fueled his epiphany.

It just seems a bit precious to claim an epiphany if you already know about it and have done it. Maybe more of a development than a moment of sudden revelation.
But I am just being cynical.

[Vaughn]

The epiphany was not about filters, their effects and results, but about the possibility of visualizing how filters and all the other factors (SBR, exposure, development, papers, toners, etc) will come together to determine what the final print will look like. The filter merely provided the spark for the epiphany.

[Mark Sawyer]

Epiphany favors the prepared mind...

[Alan Klein]

I'm curious. Seeing something in your mind's eye and then being able to create that view in your photo, doesn;t make the final picture artistic. What you visualize in your eye has to be artistic to begin with. THoughts on this.

[Sal Santamaura]

I recently re-read my copy of Mary Alinder's AA biography 23 years after the first time through it. Most glaring in that video is how Michael Adams refers to his father as "Ansel" rather than "Dad." Ansel, in my opinion, was an SOB to his family. Michael was warned by his mother never to trust Ansel, who led his life mostly separate from Virginia and the children, repeatedly toying with the idea of leaving them for other women. When Ansel was on his deathbed, Michael, having been warned that the end was near, chose to be at home rather than in the hospital.

With a little background information, some things can be "visualized" even more clearly than a photographic print. :)

[Peter De Smidt]

There are two aspects to producing a good photo. First, you have to be able to accomplish what you want. Second, what you want has to be good in some way.

[Bernice Loui]

First, Ability to accomplish is the technical aspects of image creation. Second, has to be good, is not a requirement. The image needs to have the ability to communicate in some way which can be "good" or "bad" or any other aspect of sharing the human condition.


Bernice


There are two aspects to producing a good photo. First, you have to be able to accomplish what you want. Second, what you want has to be good in some way.

[Tin Can]

'good' ???


There are two aspects to producing a good photo. First, you have to be able to accomplish what you want. Second, what you want has to be good in some way.

[Peter De Smidt]

Yep. Valuable, interesting,....use your own definition.

[Vaughn]

I'm curious. Seeing something in your mind's eye and then being able to create that view in your photo, doesn;t make the final picture artistic. What you visualize in your eye has to be artistic to begin with. THoughts on this.

My thoughts -- "artistic" is a term with no meaning in this situation.

[Tin Can]

I aim for interesting, value is mine.


Yep. Valuable, interesting,....use your own definition.

[Sal Santamaura]

..."artistic" is a term with no meaning in this situation.That adjective, like its root noun, has no meaning in any situation. "Art" is whatever anyone wants it to be. Thus, the words convey nothing.

[Peter De Smidt]

For those who think there's no such thing as goodness, value, interest.... See: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_is_the_world_getting_better_or_worse_a_look_at_the_numbers

Do you prefer your surgery with anesthetist or without?

[Willie]

Adams would Visualize, not "pre" visualize...

[Vaughn]

Pre-visualization was a minor offshoot in the the Zone System.

Pre-visualization is the moment when one gathers all the needed info (meter readings and all that), thoughts, weather, moon phase, where the print will hang, etc in order to visualize.
Post-visualization comes after visualization and can include everything from setting up the camera to framing the print .

I am not too heavy on the visualization, or I am -- hard to say which. I do not crop, burn, nor dodge, generally speaking, so I have to know how what is on the film will translate as an alt process print. And since the two alt processes I work with are quite different in how they translate the negative (one even reverses the image), print process choice is generally made before the film exposure. But I also enjoy the surprises, the film exposed not knowing how it will all turn out, the experiments, and the ways of light that I have not experienced before. Trusting only on visualization limits one's images to what one knows. It is difficult to visualize what one has not yet experienced.

[Tin Can]

Gadzook

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