Ansel met with us students at the University of Arizona in 1980. As an undergraduate student, I worked at the Center and showed his portfolios to the public and scholars, as well as all the other masters of American 20th Century photography in that collection.
A couple of us asked him in a group setting about where digital was going. At that time the Optical Sciences dept was developing what was for that time mind blowing digital capture technology . They designed optics and digital imaging tech used by Nasa for planetary mapping and pentagon surveillance such as of Russian missile
sites, etc. They could record tiny details from a mile high satellite . All that was stored on 3/4 inch digital tape on reels. They made 8x10 negs from the digital tape and put together mosaic topographic print maps. Their optics and digital tape was really something else and made film look like the 19th century. The physics students knew more about what was going on than we did. I saw it and couldn’t believe it. After seeing that I felt like a cave man.
Ansel knew all about that in 1980. So did my teacher Todd Walker who sent me over there to learn what digital photography was going to be. It was actually very secretive then.
Ansel also was friends with people in Silicon Valley so he knew exactly where it was headed. He told us digital was going to produce tonal and resolution capability that would put him to shame but that he wasn’t going to live long enough to see it available in the private sector, but we would.
As an aside Ansel told the director of the Center For Creative Photography. Jim Enyeart, that he wanted the students in the future to scan his negatives that are stored there and “experiment” and “interpret “ and explore the possibilities with the electronic capture that was quickly coming. At that time there were no personal computers on the market much less pigment printers or dslrs. Ansel was also close friends with John Schafer the University president at that time who was a scientist and very much aware of what NASA and the Optical Sciences dept were doing on campus.
We had a class reunion of sorts about 8 years ago and they had a big exhibition of landscape photography hanging up from the collection. I was kind of stunned at how dark all the prints were. Back in those days the sweet spot for gelatin silver was pretty damn dark. Compared to today almost everyone printed dark. Adams would have loved to work with the highlight and midtones capability we have now. What we take for granted. A lot of his snow capped mountains had highlights that were like zone 5, and it looked normal at that time.
John
quote author=Michael West link=topic=136976.msg1237964#msg1237964 date=1648429529]
Ansel Adams: Photography With Intentionthis video contains the quote I now much more clearly remember
"The thing that excites me in the not too distant future Were going to have an entirely new medium of expression of the electronic image
i know the potential there... and its going to be wonderful"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zxancgfDVgthanks again
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