Tag: film

Ansel Adams – The Making of 40 Photographs: Rock and Surf

Insight into the way Ansel Adams made the photograph “Rock and Surf” and some thoughts on photographing the surf.

I was fortunate to be in Big Sur last week photographing that magnificent coast with the members of our workshop.  Ansel Adams made some beautiful photographs here as did, of course, Edward Weston.  An increasingly common technique used by photographers is to employ a neutral density filter to get very long exposures that turn the ocean into a sea of ethereal mist.  Many of these photographs are incredibly beautiful.  Personally, I connect with the power and energy of the ocean, something these beautiful photographs do not capture.

Adams’ technique was to stop the motion in of the surf as in this photograph titled “Rock and Surf.”  Freezing the water was essential to the effectiveness of the composition.

rock and surf

Rock and Surf (1951)
Ansel Adams

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What Constitutes a Fine Art Photograph?

At shows I’m frequently asked the following questions:  “Do you use filters?”  “Do you enhance these photographs?”  “Are these colors real?”

 

The answer is simply, “Of course.”  But I often want to respond, “If these were paintings would you be asking me whether the colors are real?  Or would there be an assumption that as a painter I interpreted the scene before me and selected the colors that contributed to my artistic vision?”  This leads to another question.  “As an artist, is a photographer any less free to express her feeling by whatever means the medium allows,  Is a photographer expected to hold to a different standard than a painter, sculptor, poet, novelist or composer?”  So, “Of course” is the simple answer but there is oh so much more behind it.

 

A follow up comment I often make is something to the effect that there are many, many hours that go into each photograph to get it to express my artistic vision.  Sometimes there are as many as 30 or 40 hours often spread out over a period of months or even years.  If we snapped a picture and took it down to Costco for a print would it be fair to call it fine art?  Or, if it took a photographer any less time to created a fine art print that it did a painter to create a painting, would it be fair to call that fine art?

 

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