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Right Click Here for one of my favourite Ansel Adams images. While not as graphic as 'Moon Over Halfdome' or 'Aspens', this image is entirely about light - the sunlight pouring through the trees. You'd think this would be a fairly easy shot to get but I understand from talented photographers who have found Ansels tripod holes that it isn't. This is no surprise. On the average sunny day with the sun behind this must be quite boring and with the sun coming towards the camera 'soot and chalk' is the order of the day.
No, this image is about recognizing that very special light that sometimes happens, often after rain, in which the landscape glows. All you have to do then is capture this wonderful light. Ansel took advantage of thick emulsion films which recorded a greater dynamic range than modern films, processed it appropriately and then printed superbly. We can emulate this kind of film and processing by shooting more than a single digital exposure and either blending the images or bringing them into the new Photoshop HDR mode - 32 bit high dynamic range recording - I had occasion recently to reprocess the 'Church Through Church Window' image and it was a lot easier to get a good print with the HDR image than the previous two layer sep. exposure combination that I have been doing for several years. Tutorials about HDR imply that you need many exposures to blend but this is absolutely not true - two did very nicely here covering a good 14 stop range.
While not a bold composition, it is none the less well composed. The rock balances the tree on the left, the bright leaves on the right (?Dogwoods) balances the bright leaves on the left side. Note the trees angling slightly towards each other and framing the distant tree snag which iteself shows well against the fluffy light background of leaves. Even the evergreen in the background is positioned well - can you imagine if the large tree on the left hid half of it - ugly-so.
The foreground gravel makes a nice triangle at the bottom of the image - so much better than a straight line across the bottom seen in so many images.
The dark snags in the upper right are perfectly placed. Shadows are not harsh yet are rich.
This is the kind of image that you don't want to jump out at you and slap you - it says peaceful, quiet, light.
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2 comments:
This is a nice discussion of a beautiful picture. I'd like to address one point: "Ansel took advantage of thick emulsion films which recorded a greater dynamic range than modern films, processed it appropriately and then printed superbly."
I do not think that all the R&D money spent by film manufacturers has had the net effect of reducing B&W film's ability to deal with one of the central problems posed by many photographic opportunities: the problem of contrast that challenges the film+printing paper's ability to make a somehwat linear recording. On pp 79 - 81 of "Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs" where Adams discusses this photograph, he makes no particular mention of technical details like film used, development strategy, etc (Adams says: "In this case the exposure and development decisions were relatively simple, but the final print posed problems."). Adams comments on the difficulty of making a compelling photographic illustration of the light that was present in the original scene, and gives an apparent nod to the beauty of Kodak Azo printing paper, but that's about it for technical details. Adams spent a tremendous amount of effort refining process controls that allowed him to "fit" the light values of his photographic subjects into a mostly linear rendering on film (and he was apparently greatly distressed in cases where film's rendition of light was not close to linear. See his discussion of "Martha Porter, Pioneer Woman" on p72 of "Examples".). He did not expend all of this effort because of a superior light recording ability posessed by thick emulsion films.
Thick emulsion B&W films are given a mythical status in photographic lore. I suppose it is believed that B&W films posess the ability to create interesting, beautiful pictures in proportion to the thickness of their emulsion or the number of grams per square meter of silver contained in those emulsions. I am aware of only one real advantage of some thick emulsion films and that is a somewhat superior development expansion capability (and that only when compared to modern films lacking in this same area. Much to the surprise of thick-film mythologizers, Kodak TMAX-100 is probably the closest modern equivelant to Super-XX!).
Regards,
--Philip.
Philip - you make a valid point. I certainly came along after super XX was passe and that was 40 years ago. Bruce Barnbaum has managed to record huge dynamic ranges with his cathedral images but it took water baths and compensating development. I still think it was easier for Ansel to record images with deep shadows and bright highlights. It's not just laziness which has moved people away from the +3 and -3 developments which worked for Ansel - they don't work as well with modern films.
This of course doesn't address the question of whether I'd prefer to go back to the super XX, 8 X 10 days because I wouldn't. Miniature formats like 4X5 and even smaller do better with modern films.
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