Ansel Adams Research

Ansel Adams was an intillegent, intense, shy, understated, dyslexic genius, after wanting to pursue music as a career, he went into photography instead he was orb ion San Francisco, a keen naturalist inspired by Yosemite National park, he was born in 1902 and died in 1984. He is an infamous landscape photographer, he is known for a particular style.

Group f/64 was a group of seven 20th-century San Francisco photographers with a photographic style that is sharp-focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western (U.S.) viewpoint. They formed in opposition to the Pictorialist photographic style that had dominated much of the early 20th century, but moreover they wanted to promote a new Modernist aesthetic that was based on precisely exposed images of natural forms and found object.

F/64 is a small aperture setting on a large format camera, which creates great depth of field, small aperture sometimes implies a long exposure sometimes implies long exposure which often captures still life such as landscapes.

Previsualisation- Visualisation was a massive part of Adam's photography, it's a function to visualize complex scenes in a movie before filming. It's in still photography. Previsualization is applied to techniques such as storyboarding, either in the form of charcoal drawn sketches or in digital technology in the planning and conceptualization of movie scenery make up.

Adam's always shot in black and white because of the zone system and within this, as there are 9 tones within black and white this creates mass variation in tone which adds and creates Adam's unique styled pieces, the great detail and tone, which means that the blacks and white colours are all visible. 

This image was taken in Yosemite National Park, this picture was clearly taken with a small aperture which is why the picture has a great depth of field as, all the photo is in focus, the changes in tone change massively within the composition of the image because of the zone system in black and white. The clarity and structure of this image is beautiful as the clear leading lines of the car, the man and he mountains all come together to create variation in subjects an tone.

In this picture of a desert, Adams has once again shot in black and white, this works especially well as the natural world being a desert is very blank and doesn't change colour, so variation in tone will only change depending on light, he clearly uses dodge and burn this picture to emphasise change in tone where the light hits the right hand side of the sand dune. A small aperture has been used to allow subtle changes in light this makes the appearance of the dunes seem darker and blank. This picture also has a great depth of field because all dunes are in focus.

This naturalist image of silver birch trees comes across in a very artificial way as the trees are illuminated and don't look real, however the reason that they are so light in tone is because Adam's only shoots are in black and white therefore this is a prime example of how within zone system lighter tones can really stand out and contrast against the mute dark backdrop, the depth of field is interesting as everything is in focus but the main subject being the trees at the front of the picture are more clear. Black and white is definitely something that i'd love to try out more especially in nature as it can really bring out a raw definition to images, a small aperture is also something I want to use as it's something that really allows small mute changes within tone to happen.