Before I begin however, all of us here at RMSP hope you have enjoyed learning a bit about Ansel. He is a true icon in photography. Obviously there is more to this man than we could cover in a week on the blog, so we STRONGLY encourage you to check out his work at the MAM. Surrounding yourself with 130 of his prints is perhaps the best possible way to learn from him.

When and where was the class you took with Ansel?
It was in June of ’73 in Yosemite National Park. It was roughly a week and a half course taught by Ansel and four other professional photographers teaching various advanced techniques. In particular, I attended the course to study the Zone System from Ansel. Since he invented this technique with Fred Archer in 1940, I figured I had better take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn it from him.

Were you already a teacher of photography at the time?
Yes. I had been teaching for about two years in the Art Institute of Atlanta photography program. I convinced them to send me to this course. I then came back and taught the Zone System for them. I adapted my own way of teaching it based on what I learned from Ansel. Same information, just my unique way of teaching it. In fact, one day another photographer asked me if there was a Zone System for color photography, which there wasn’t at the time. That got me to thinking, “Hey, why couldn’t there be?!” So I adapted the information to create a Zone System for color. I’m pretty sure there was nobody else who had done this before that time. For at least twenty years I was the only one teaching it…that I knew of, anyway.

What was the learning experience like during the course?
There were five groups of fifteen students. Each group would spend about a half a day with a different instructor on various things. A half a day shooting, in the darkroom, having our work critiqued, or in Ansel’s case, with him critiquing his own work. He was a tough but fair critiquer, but he was especially tough on his own work. Almost brutal.

One of the first things he did when we went out shooting was to give us all a 4″ x 5″ cardboard viewing frame. He told us that you don’t just go out in the field and start looking through your camera for your shot. You had to get an idea of where you were both physically and emotionally. He taught the concept of pre-visualization which is so important as a photographer. He showed us how to use the viewing frame to “see” the image before we even set up our camera gear. It was a great exercise which I still teach to this day.

Ansel himself seemed to be way more of a “left brain” person than “right brain” person. Although a brilliant artist, he was extremely precise with his techniques and taught them the same way. His technical knowledge and experience was truly who he was. In the darkroom, he really impressed me with how to be organized, efficient, careful and precise. Up until that point, I had been pretty sloppy in the darkroom, but not after that. I changed my habits immediately because I saw firsthand the results he could produce.

One example is that he would use a sample negative from a student and demonstrate printing technique. He’d show us the difference of how to print it without much work being done to it…and then how it could be turned into a masterpiece with what he does to his own work in the darkroom. The difference was literally night and day and it was a very graphic way to learn. It was amazing!

I also learned a very hard lesson once when I presented my work to him using gray colored matte board. He used mine as an example of how NOT to present work…the only thing a viewer should be focused on is the image and not be distracted by the matte board or fancy framing. In the fine art print world, work should ALWAYS be in white mattes only. Boy, I was pretty embarrassed so I learned the hard way. I listened to that advice and never use mattes other than white.

Ansel was a great character and person. He was always cracking jokes and telling stories. Very personable and I enjoyed being around him a lot.

What kind of stories did he tell? Do you remember any?
Oh, things like the story of one of his more famous works, “Moonrise Over Hernandez, New Mexico.” What he told us was that image was so popular that up to that time he had already printed 923 versions of it. He would go on to produce over a thousand copies in his lifetime and each one of them is different. He would print the sky darker and darker each time because it made it look more and more dramatic. He knew a good thing when he had one.

Was it your first time in Yosemite National Park?
Yes, it was the first time I visited Yosemite…maybe the first time I went out to the West in general. It was pretty amazing!

Anything else you’d like to say about your experience with Ansel?
Well, while we there, Ansel happened to be hosting a 65th birthday party for his friend,  Beaumont Newhall, the number one photography historian at the time. Since our class happened to be taking place at the time, he invited all us to his home to join the party. There were many famous photographers there such Jerry Uelsmann and Ralph Gibson. It was so cool to be around all of these great people and I think I was the only one there with a camera. One of them was another friend of Ansel’s, the famous Hungarian photographer, Brasaii.  It came time to cut the birthday cake and Beaumont asked Brasaii if he had a knife on him. Brasaii gave his pocket knife to him and he then started to cut the cake with it. Brasaii stopped him and took his knife back. It was kind of funny, actually. Overall, it was a great experience.

What will you be talking about in your lecture at MAM, “Ansel Adams: The Making of a Photograph”on October 26?
I’ll be talking about my experience in his class, a little about the Zone System, and showing examples of Ansel’s work and what he did to them to make them look SO good. It should be fun and I can’t wait!

If in town, catch Neil’s lecture, “Ansel Adams – The Making of a Photograph” on Wednesday, October 26th at 7 p.m. MST at the Missoula Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibition, “Ansel Adams: A Legacy.”

iPhone image with "Ansel" filter

Ever since I heard that an exhibit of 130 signed Ansel Adams photographs were going to be shown at the Missoula Art Museum (MAM), I wanted to be part of the experience. As it turns out, I get to be part of two cool experiences. I am beyond excited at the upcoming opportunity to be a docent for the Fifth Grade Art Experience, a program co-sponsored by MAM, Art Associates of Missoula, the Missoula Public Library and Missoula County Public Schools. Every fifth grade class in the county plus some from rural schools in Swan Valley, Darby and Alberton, Montana are invited to attend.

We’re going through docent training right now with Curator of Education, Renee Taffe at MAM, so that over the next 10 weeks, I’ll be prepared to join groups of 5th graders as they learn about the museum’s exhibits. I’ll especially enjoy introducing them to Ansel Adams’ amazing prints and talking to them about Ansel Adams, the person, the musician, the photographer. Can you imagine, 5th graders who were born during the digital camera boom – most of them don’t even know what a film camera is! Luckily I was able to find a box film camera, one like Ansel used when he was their age, and through the wonders of the internet, rolls of 120 film. This is show-and-tell at it’s best. It might not register with them now as profoundly as we might hope, but my goal is that someday they will look back and say, ‘Holy guacamole, when I was in 5th grade I saw 130 prints that were made and signed by Ansel Adams!’

Just being in the museum with these prints has been almost overwhelming for me. The more I learn about Ansel’s process and the intuition involved in his visualization, the more I realize that artist’s need to be allowed to create and taught how to begin to see. Opening the eyes of fifth graders to the possibilities of their own imagination is a gift I’m looking forward to sharing.

If you are like most people, when you hear the name Ansel Adams, it might inspire thoughts of a bearded man standing near a massive tripod somewhere in the wilderness. If the tripod in your mental picture is supporting a camera that looks like an accordion or a wooden shoe box (and in no way resembles your fancy Canon 5D Mark II) you’ve got the right Ansel.  For many, this may be the extent of what they know about the equipment he used.  So, today we thought it would be interesting to take a quick look at some of the gear Ansel had tucked away in his camera bag…which was often carried by his mule, Mistletoe, high into the mountains.

Let’s start from the ground up. Many times, Ansel would set up shop a few feet off the ground in order to get a unique perspective. This meant climbing on top of his eight-passenger Cadillac which was outfitted with a 5 x 9-foot camera platform on top. Not a bad idea!

image from wikipedia.org

Next up – the tripod.  According to one quote we found, Ansel Adams said that the ideal tripod “is a cubic yard of solid concrete with a 1/4″ X #20 bolt head sticking out of the top.” While Ansel used a variety of tripods, they had to be sturdy enough to support his massive camera.

photo: ©Neil Chaput de Saintonge

Now for the camera. More often than not Ansel used what is called a large-format view camera. Typically large, heavy and rather complicated, a view camera has a light-safe bellows between the lens and the film plane. This bellows is flexible, allowing the photographer to adjust and control the focus, perspective and depth of field. View cameras accommodate single sheets of film at varying sizes up to 20×24 inches, however typical sizes for a view camera are 4×5 and 8×10. Although the technology progressed throughout his career, and cameras became smaller, he preferred his large-format view camera for the incredible detail they provided his images.  Needless to say, Ansel’s view camera did not have a motor drive, nor did it allow him to upload anything to Facebook.

image from wikipedia.org

The light meter. Ansel used a Weston Master meter to take readings of the light. Largely considered to be a “workhorse” in the realm of light meters, the Weston Master series provided Ansel with important baseline readings. From there…well he used this little thing called the Zone System. In the interest of keeping this blog post under the length of War and Peace, we won’t get into the Zone System today.

example of a Weston Master series light meter.

The hat.  Although not a typical piece of photo gear, Ansel is often seen in photographs wearing a cowboy hat. Apparently it was a Stetson. As many people know – especially in our home state of Montana – a good hat can make all the difference. Maybe this was Ansel’s secret???

Do you have any experience using any of the equipment Ansel used? Perhaps you’ve rigged up your own top-of-car platform. We’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below.

According to the Astronomical Society of the Pacific:

“One of the most active leaders of the [Astronomical Society of the Pacific] was Charles H. Adams, an insurance broker and businessman, who had an amateur interest in astronomy.  After joining the ASP Board in 1923, he soon became the Board’s Secretary-Treasurer, a post he held for 25 years.  During this time, Society business was often conducted from his home and records were kept there.  His son later remembered spending time at the kitchen table attaching mailing labels to issues of the ASP’s journal.  Charles’ fascination with the skies rubbed off on his son, Ansel Adams, who became a nature photographer of international renown and later charied the first Annual Fund of the ASP in his father’s honor.”

While Adams is probably best known for his images of the Sierra Nevadas and Yosemite he had a much wider body of work. Working with Dorothea Lange, Adams created various image sets for Time Magazine and others (Deyo, 2002). The subjects of these images were diverse as water rights struggles to the Mormons of Utah (Deyo, 2002). Adams also recorded the Japanese American interment camps from World War II (ZPub, n.d.).

Ansel was one of eleven pioneering and historic figures in photography to found the famous Group f/64 including Imogene Cunningham, Edward Weston, John Paul Edwards, Preston Holder, Consuelo Kanaga and others in San Francisco in 1932.

In addition to the photographs themselves, Adams contributed to the growing field of photography in his development of the “zone system” relating to exposure and development before computerized light meters and developing techniques. Adams was also a consultant for companies such as Polaroid and Hasselblad. (Turnage, n.d.)

Ansel nearly became a concert pianist instead of a photographer. (ZPub, n.d.)

Died of cancer-related heart failure (ZPub, n.d.)

Was never financially secure despite his fame. (Turnage, n.d.)

RMSP is a proud sponsor of the exhibit and of the supporting lectures series surrounding it. In celebration of this fabulous exhibit, we will be adding relevant posts about Mr. Ansel Adams to our blog all this week.

First up is a re-post of Page Orb Pedde’s insightful article entitled Ansel’s Yosemite based upon his love affair with Yosemite National Park. Be sure to visit the included links Page references that provide valuable insight into this amazing American photographic pioneer. Enjoy!