Ansel Adams on the importance of visualization in photography
I have long been influenced by Ansel Adams…I think it comes from a combination of, not only my love for landscape photography, which drew me to pick up a camera in the first place, but also his nerdy, technical approach to his final prints. Ansel did extensive manipulation of his negatives in the darkroom to produce the prints and images you see today…if he were alive today I’m sure he’d sit on Adobe’s board of directors.
I found this video on Vimeo and it was put together by Marc Silber of Silber Studios.tv. Ansel talks about how external and internal events can come together to make a creative photograph, not just a snap shot of an event. He equates the internal vision to what your mind’s eye sees when you view a scene and record it with your camera.
I remember reading his autobiography years ago and how he talked about being able to visualize his final print(s) before he took a picture and that has always been an influence in my photography. Some of my most successful photographs are the ones where I can see the final result of the picture before I release the shutter. It sounds kind of hokey but it’s true - there are certain images that I know will work better than others because I can combine what I see with how I can process the picture in post production (ie. Lightroom).
