Hi,
Many people may be unaware that early in his career, Ansel was all set to
become a professional, classical, concert pianist. Apparently, he was that
good.
Torn between two forces, he chose photography.
Perhaps that explains these words taken from his narrative about "Clearing
Winter Storm". Brian
"A certain amount of dodging and burning was required to achieve the tonal
balance demanded by my visualisation. I never retouch a negative, but I
resort , as do all photographers I know, to dodging, burning, print-developer
controls, and spotting. As I have described in "Book 3; The Print", a negative
properly exposed and developed in relation to the subject luminance scale
contains essential information for printing.
I think of the negative as the "score" and the print as a "performance" of that
score, which conveys the emotional and aesthetic ideas of the photographer
at the time of making the exposure. The print will usually require logical
controls locally, since there is no such thing as the ideal or perfect
negative.
The negative is the conveying phase of the process, between the subject and
the expressive print. My work is realistic only in reference to the image of
the
lens; values are modified as required for the visualised image. Such
modifications are accomplished strictly within the limits of practical
photographic techniques.
Although this photograph is often seen as an environmental statement, I do
not recall that I ever intentionally made a photography for environmentally
significant purposes. My photographs that are considered to relate to these
issues are images conceived for their intrinsic aesthetic and emotional
qualities, whatever these may be. To attempt to make a photograph like this
one as an assignment for an environmental project, for example, would be
stimulating but quite uncertain of result. I have been at this location
countless times over many years, but only once did I encounter just such a
combination of visual elements.
I always encourage students to photograph everything they see and respond
to emotionally. Intellectual and critical evaluation of work is not helpful to
creativity, regimenting perception into functional requirements is likewise
restrictive. I have made thousands of photographs of the natural scene, but
only those visualisations that were most intensely felt at the moment of
exposure have survived the inevitable winnowing of time.
Some images are useful historically or as aids to recollection of subject or
event, but these certainly do not have the appeal or impact of the images
that relate to external beauty and internal creative response".
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