Ansel Adams On Small Cameras

“Do digital cameras lull us into a kind of “questionable inclination.” There’s no incremental cost to shoot an extra 5, 10 or, 100 frames. And, if it’s not perfect we can always tweak it in post-production, fixing the errors in exposure, cropping the composition and if all else fails, covering up our mistakes with filters! ”

This is an interesting question to ask in the light of Adams own inclination to manipulate his images, and the manner in which other well known photos were heavily tweaked to turn them from images with potential into the world-class pictures that became famous.

Everyone has their own criteria for what makes a good picture, and for some, a photo is only acceptable if it has been taken in conformity with the requirements of their process. I am a little like that, spurning images taken with phonecams, while for others it is unethical/unacceptible to take multiple shots of a scene, or to adjust in post, or to remove items that spoil the original scene. In the end, I’m not sure it matters provided the print makes you want to look at it more than once.

Regarding post processing, as someone who loved making their own prints and would manipulate in colour and B&W, being able to process images to acheive a desired endpoint in post is wonderful. Is it rescuing failures? I never saw an image SOOC that I would not wish to adjust in some way, and could not imagine a camera that could give me the results I wanted without adjustment – all images SOOC are ‘failures’ for me, so maybe it is rescuing? And I certainly roduce plenty of junk. TBH I’m not sure it matters if someone uses ‘spray and pray’, or whether they take a single, meticulously thought through and pre-prepared image, provided the print expresses something good or uplifting or wonderful in some other fashion.

And for me, the highest complement is when someone wants to take one of my pictures home and hang it on their wall.