Ansel Adams: Visualizing a Photograph
About this video
Ansel Adams explains that his photography depends on visualizing the final print before he makes the exposure, which means not only seeing it in the mind's eye but feeling the qualities he wants. He compares the negative to a musical score and the print to its performance.
You'll be able to
- explain what Ansel Adams means by visualizing a photograph.
- explain Adams's comparison of the negative to a musical score and the print to a performance.
Key words
- visualization
- Imagining and feeling the final print before taking the photograph.
- exposure
- The moment light is let into the camera to record the image.
- negative
- The developed film image, with light and dark reversed, used to make prints.
- The final photograph made on paper from the negative.
Transcript
(delicate piano music) - My basic approach to photography... depends on the visualization of the final print before exposure is made. I say this very often, and I don't know whether people realize that's exactly what is meant. When you visualize a photograph, it is not only a matter of seeing it in mind's eye...
but it's also and primarily a matter of feeling it, feeling the various qualities that you wish to obtain in the final print. The shutter is operated. And then, the negative is developed. The negative can now be compared to a musical score. It's ready for it's performance, the print.
If the negative is properly composed, technically and aesthetically, it can be performed, so as to recreate the original visualized intention... so that finally I can say that I visualized the essence of the photograph to be.
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