As if on cue, right after I posted my “Photographer versus Photoshopper” piece yesterday, in which I mentioned Adam’s “Moonrise…” photograph, I saw this wonderful video interview with Ansel Adams’ son Michael in which he offers a basic description of the extensive post-processing that Adams applied to the original negative to produce the print we know so well.
The interview also reminded me of another topic for the “Photographic Myths and Platitudes” series that I am thinking about, namely the claim that great photographers always carefully compose and consider their subjects before they trip the shutter. Sometimes they do, but quite often it is more a matter of “tripping” over the tripod as one scrambles to capture a moment of beauty that appeared unexpectedly and which may disappear any second if you don’t work quickly. Of course, well-developed technical and aesthetic instincts help when it comes to turning such a moment into a photograph.
Yes, that “cloud removal” should give a few insistent “realists” pause, especially those who point to Adams as providing the model for realism in photography. Ansel Adams was a great photographer and I absolutely love his work, but it is amazing how many self-serving and dead wrong misinterpretations of what he is about are floating around.
I especially like the part where he shows how some of the clouds had been completely removed in the final prints.