Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Michael West on March 02, 2011, 09:47:20 pm

Title: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: Michael West on March 02, 2011, 09:47:20 pm
Somewhere on the web I saw an image of a contact print made from one of Ansel Adams' negatives.

Id like very much to locate it to share with a young aspiring photographer.  almost totally unfamiliar with the joys of modern photo processing.

The vast distance between the image of the photographic contact print and the print Ansel made from the photograph should I think be rather inspiring.

Im hoping that someone here might be familiar with the image I referred to.

Thanks
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: lightstand on March 03, 2011, 05:55:14 pm
Honestly to me your question is very vague as I'm sure Ansel Adams made numerous contact prints and then later made larger processed fine prints of the same negatives.

There is a good book about Ansel Adams something like "the Making of 40 prints"  I can't remember the title exactly (google)  the book is all about the different steps taking these 40 views and making the fine print  and it it has illustrations of the Raw image such as "Moonrise Over..."  without any darkroom magic and then the creative decisions in the darkroom to come up with the Fine Print

On the same topic of interpreting negatives  I saw a great show of Edward Weston's work and each view had two prints one that Edward Weston printed and one that his son Brett Weston printed.  A very cool show
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: bill t. on March 04, 2011, 09:55:34 pm
The Photo Purity Police often accuse me of Felony Digital Post Processing.  I like to give them this URL...

http://www.f45.com/html/tech/tecindex.html

Click center-top for starters.

Plenty of good examples of photo-chemical contact->print workflow.  Ansel did all that, and much more.

Adams also had a contact printer with a multitude of lightbulbs and various holdouts that could be be positioned underneath the platen surface to create various feathered gradations.  With a contact printer like that you could set up a lot of burning and dodging with no more than a single exposure, with perfect repeatability.
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: Michael West on April 02, 2011, 09:21:40 pm
 desperation may also be the mother of invention

I used googles image search to find a fine comparison of a contact print and a fine finessed  print made in the darkroom.

(http://www.laurenhenkinblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/MoonriseBefore.jpg)    (http://www.laurenhenkinblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/MoonriseAfter.jpg)

Thank you
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: feppe on April 02, 2011, 09:30:02 pm
The Photo Purity Police often accuse me of Felony Digital Post Processing.  I like to give them this URL...

http://www.f45.com/html/tech/tecindex.html

Click center-top for starters.

Plenty of good examples of photo-chemical contact->print workflow.  Ansel did all that, and much more.

Adams also had a contact printer with a multitude of lightbulbs and various holdouts that could be be positioned underneath the platen surface to create various feathered gradations.  With a contact printer like that you could set up a lot of burning and dodging with no more than a single exposure, with perfect repeatability.

I've never done darkroom, but wow, that example you pointed out shows just how extreme analog adjustments can be. Funny thing is, that wouldn't even be possible with digital due to burned out highlights!
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: Michael West on April 02, 2011, 11:28:09 pm
I've never done darkroom, but wow, that example you pointed out shows just how extreme analog adjustments can be. Funny thing is, that wouldn't even be possible with digital due to burned out highlights!

I don't know about impossible, but it most certainly illustrates the great latitude that the "old school" "analog"  purveyors of Fine Art photography allowed in their work
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: Kirk Gittings on April 03, 2011, 01:03:57 am
Quote
I've never done darkroom, but wow, that example you pointed out shows just how extreme analog adjustments can be. Funny thing is, that wouldn't even be possible with digital due to burned out highlights!

I've been doing analogue since I was 12. That is 48 years. Yikes! Analogue won't pull detail out of blown highlights any better than digital. What you are looking at is a bad scan of a contact print.
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: feppe on April 03, 2011, 06:52:17 am
Not to hijack the thread (but I guess I am anyway :P ), but does anyone have an extreme example of just how much can be done in the darkroom? I've seen lot of examples in the past, but the one linked above was way beyond anything I've seen, and seems like it's not a representative sample.

I've always shot slides when shooting film, so all my editing is on the computer.
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: Kirk Gittings on April 03, 2011, 11:55:01 am
The example above is a great one. It started with an underexposed negative-it was exposed to preserve the detail in the moon. Later AA chemically intensified the foreground to boost the contrast. The sky is then heavily burned in. Get a copy of AA's "The Making of 40 Photographs". He explains the printing of the image in there.
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: langier on April 03, 2011, 02:48:17 pm
Who needs photoshop?

Jerry Ulsmann simply used a darkroom full of enlargers to do his great manipulated images and craft them quite well, years before even the brothers Knoll were born.

http://www.uelsmann.net/
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: Michael West on April 03, 2011, 09:46:16 pm
 Who needs photoshop?

using whatever is at hand to the very maximum best effect is what really counts.

Thanks
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: popnfresh on April 03, 2011, 11:02:05 pm
Who needs photoshop?

In my opinion, every serious photographer who shoots digital.
Title: Re: Help Me FInd an Image of an Ansel Adams Contact Print
Post by: NikoJorj on April 04, 2011, 04:54:59 am
In my opinion, every serious photographer who shoots digital.
They don't, what they really need instead is Lightroom.  ;D