Another Ansel Adams quote

[480sparky]

Getting halfway through the third of the trilogy of The Camera, The Negative and The Print , the first paragraph of Chapter 5 (The Fine Print: Control of Values) contains an tremendous gem:

I know from experience that there are no shortcuts to excellence.

 

[petrochemist]

Nice and very probably true but his experience only shows he's not found a short cut to excellence. I've certainly not found one either but it doesn't mean one doesn't exist.

Given the level of excellene he acheived it may even be that he DID find a shortcut - many people would never be able to approach his skill in a lifetime or two! A shortcut that reduces 100 years of hard work to 20 or 30 years is not to be sniffed at.

 

[KenC]

Nil sine magno vita labore dedit mortalibus. (Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work) Horace, ca. 35 BC

 

[480sparky]

.......- many people would never be able to approach his skill in a lifetime or two!..........

The vast majority never will simply because they don't shoot film.

 

[Fred Berg]

.......- many people would never be able to approach his skill in a lifetime or two!..........

The vast majority never will simply because they don't shoot film.

It would be interesting to know what medium Adams would be using if he were alive today.

 

[Derrel]

It would be interesting to know what medium Adams would be using if he were alive today.

Most likely he'd be shooting Sony-sensor digital (Hasselblad,Pentax,Nikon). At the end of his life, in one of his last interviews, he was VERY enthusiastic about the future of digital (then called 'electronic') imaging. This is currently a really amazing time to be involved with photography, since the new sensors have such amazing image quality, and we've finally reached a point where really extreme plus and minus development (in software) is easily possible, not only with B&W images, but also with full-color images.

 

[dennybeall]

I'd agree with Derrel. I think Adams would be shooting 36meg full frame or better and using Photoshop with a monster computer and very big monitor. All color corrected.
He was a perfectionist in my estimation so would be using the best he could get.

 

[tirediron]

I'd agree with Derrel. I think Adams would be shooting 36meg full frame or better and using Photoshop with a monster computer and very big monitor. All color corrected.
He was a perfectionist in my estimation so would be using the best he could get.

Yep! I don't think Ansel would have cared a fig what was under the hood, just as long as he got the image.

 

[bribrius]

"I don't want followers."

Noam Chomsky

 

[terri]

It would be interesting to know what medium Adams would be using if he were alive today.

Most likely he'd be shooting Sony-sensor digital (Hasselblad,Pentax,Nikon). At the end of his life, in one of his last interviews, he was VERY enthusiastic about the future of digital (then called 'electronic') imaging. This is currently a really amazing time to be involved with photography, since the new sensors have such amazing image quality, and we've finally reached a point where really extreme plus and minus development (in software) is easily possible, not only with B&W images, but also with full-color images.

I agree. He was also quoted as being highly enthusiastic just with the invention of instant film in the '70s, and Polaroid/Land cameras. No doubt he did not take shortcuts to achieve his technical perfection with film, but that doesn't necessarily follow that he'd limit himself to one medium.