This is an extraordinary collection, not just for the extraordinary subject material, but because for many of the images we have access to both Adams' final result (scans of his prints) as well as "straight" scans from the negatives. It shows how utterly essential darkroom post-processing can be to the final impact of a fine art photograph. And now you can download the scans and see what you can do with them yourself in, eg, Photoshop or Capture One.
this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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Consider this image, a simple composition of birds on a power line.
Here's a straight scan from the negative:
https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppprs.00162/
And here's what Adams did with it:
https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppprs.00291/
So next time someone tells you you're "cheating" if you make adjustments in post processing, tell them to go pound sand.
@[email protected] If only Ansel Adams had written a fourth book, “the ignorant critic” to augment the Camera, the Negative and the Print
It's also instructive to compare Adams' work from Manzanar with that of another great 20th century photographer who was granted access: Dorothea Lange.
Adams took a superficially upbeat approach, portraying his subjects as highly relatable, ordinary Americans making the best of things under somewhat difficult circumstances.
Lange showed them more as victims, emphasizing the rough conditions and fundamental injustice: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/dorothea-lange-39-s-visit-to-the-japanese-internment-camps/fwVR8MHEGsn72g?hl=en
Both were subversive, though in different ways.
Lange was first and foremost a documentarian who saw herself as an activist. Her most famous work was done for the US Farm Services Administration during the depression (e.g., her iconic "Migrant Mother" portrait). She sought to use photography to expose injustice and improve the world.
Adams, on the other hand, saw himself first and foremost as an artist. He sought to elevate photography as an art form.
(They were close, with deep mutual respect.)
This is, of course, an oversimplification. Lange was an obvious master of formal composition as well as the technical craft of photography, and Adams, who served for decades on the board of the Sierra Club, fully understood the power of photography to influence public and political opinion. But the two approached their artistic practice from very different perspectives.
@[email protected] I love this example - thanks! Will use it with friends who fuss at me for my use of editors.
@[email protected] It's an almost deceptively good photo, too. I love the way the intersecting wires evoke a stylized bird.
@[email protected] I totally agree, although I've never actually heard anyone say post editing is "cheating". Do some people actually think that?!