Reddit reviews The Print (Ansel Adams Photography)

The Camera, The Nevative and The Print by Ansel Adams. The Camera in particular is still relevant today; and these three books are essential reads for anyone who still shoots film.

Ansel Adam's books are amazing. The Camera and The Negative are really good. The Print is also good but not really relevant to a hybrid work flow. Still neat reading though.

If you really want to know about HDR, go pick up copies of Ansel Adams' The Camera, The Negative, and The Print. I'm not even a big Ansel Adams fan, but the dude understood HDR before it was 'cool.'

And I agree with goose_of_trees: The HDR technique here is mostly used to take boring shots and make them look terrible. Good HDR should be invisible to the viewer - they should be captivated by the content first, and if extending the dynamic range of the image will enhance that, then it is appropriate to do so.

Everybody knows it but it still needs to be said: shoot, shoot, shoot.

Willief is spot-on in my opinion. An exercise I think you might find helpful is to give yourself assignments. Just like practice, or buying books about photography, it only works if you stick to it. You have landscapes, and your still-life work is coming along well too. I would say that in addition to portraiture (both studio and candid), you should consider other genres that 'put you out there' more, that are less under your control than your current work. Street photography instantly springs to mind - you don't have to live in NYC or LA to have amazing opportunities at street photography. If you're in a more rural locale, consider work like Frank's "The Americans," or Bruce Davidson, or even combine what you can do with what you want to learn, something like R.E. Meatyard.

When you want to push your landscapes farther, I would send you in two directions: Ansel Adams for technical mastery (if you haven't, read the holy trilogy, Camera, Negative, Print), and Minor White for artistry/composition.

You're already doing great work, keep on keeping on, never settle.

Who told you that photography was the act of releasing the shutter? Photography doesn't stop when you press the button—and it never did, it's not new to the digital workflow. All sorts of manipulations used to be done in the dark room before. Look at this more globally as visual art—nobody looking at the final image gives a damn how it was made (well, except perhaps other photographers, of course).

Sometimes it would take a lot of time/money/effort to make something perfect at capture, other times you'd be wasting time in post for something you could have easily fixed at capture. Whatever is more efficient is preferable.

TL;DR: The end justifies the means.

The Ansel Adams series

Camera

Negative

Print

Learn how to use the camera at your own pace then learn about processing at your own pace. And finally printing if you want to do that at your own pace.

A black and white print is rarely black and white when done by a skilled developer. Usually, prints are toned so the dark areas are different shades of brown or blue or... whatever works best. They can be split toned so they the shadows are a different color than mid and highs. Making a print in black and white is an art, especially when using chemicals. It is also a little bit cheating--put anything in a selenium bath and it will look fantastic.

If you really want to see some interesting examples, get this book: Photographer's toning guide

This other guy wrote a book on it, too: The Print

My favorite educational book on photography is probably "The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression" by Bruce Barnbaum.

My favorite book on portraiture is "50 Portraits" by Gregory Heisler and for landscapes it's "Treasured Lands" by Q.T. Luong.

All of these have a big focus on film photography.

Another good set is Ansel Adams trilogy, The Camera, The Negative and The Print, which you can get used on Amazon for about $20 for all three books. However, they focus primarily on large format cameras, black and white negatives, and darkroom printing, so unless you're doing specifically that, I'd go with The Art of Photography above.

I get asked a variant of this, which is "are those the real colors?" I wrote an article to answer the question.

I'm reading a fascinating book now called Coloring the Universe: An Insider's Look at Making Spectacular Images of Space about the creation of those incredible images from space. I never realized that the photos started out as b&w images with no color at all. It's a great explanation as well of the limitations of eye sight. And there are the two books Ansel Adams wrote on post processing, The Print and The Negative.

If we're talking about photography as an art form, then this question is equivalent to asking a painter if they mix their paint, or only use them as they come out of the tube. It's a stupid question (not that I would tell a viewer that), but it comes from the newness of this medium as an art form and to some extent, the insecurity of photographers themselves.

> What makes pantone any different than going to a hardware store and getting their paint swatches for free?

Because Pantone is guaranteeing not just the color ink is right, they're guaranteeing that the print is right. Those are two totally separate things.

There are about a million different ways to fuck up a physical print. Open up some art books and compare the pictures of the same piece of art. You'll see all kinds of range of colors on the page. Consider, one of the reasons art collectors place a premium on lithographs is because one of the things you pay for when you get a lithograph or other "pure ink" facsimile of a piece of artwork is the guarantee that it will continue to actually look like the same thing according to the people that are the ones that define what "it" actually is.

Someone else might be able to point you toward something online, but for me, The Negative and The Print are pretty essential. Understanding the Zone System opens up a new world of possibilities when you're ready to progress past blindly following manufacturer recommendations for developing. :)

http://www.amazon.com/Print-Ansel-Adams-Photography-Book/dp/0821221876

I don't think there's a single answer to the question of "how much post-processing is the right amount?". I think it really depends on the type of photography and the photographer's vision. For example, for photojournalism, there are fairly strict rules about post-processing, in order to maintain the truth about the story, but for high art photography, the sky is the limit when it comes to post-processing.

Personally, I think as long as the photographer is honest about the amount of post-processing done, there are no limits, and the "right" amount of post-processing is whatever it takes to make the best picture possible. For example, I'm perfectly fine with with green screen photography. That type of photography necessarily requires a fair amount of post-processing, and not only is it a lot of fun, you can achieve shots that would be otherwise impossible.

I also want to respond to one comment made by the OP, where he answered "Yes" to the question: "Do you think Ansel Adams made great images by just using "in camera" negatives."

I think the OP needs to study Ansel Adams a bit, because that's not correct. Adams spent A LOT of time in the dark room, at least as much time as he did taking pictures in the first place. In fact, he wrote an entire book (The Print - https://www.amazon.com/Print-Ansel-Adams-Photography-Book/dp/0821221876) on the darkroom work required by his Zone System. There's even a quote of him saying darkroom work is 50% of the photographic process (http://expertphotography.com/10-photography-lessons-from-ansel-adams/).

To be fair, it's not to say proper camera technique isn't important. It absolutely is, and there's nothing wrong with challenging yourself to taking outstanding shots without post-processing. But similarly, there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing heavy post-processing to make fine art photos.

The Print, The Negative, and The Camera by Ansel Adams.