I've been reading over this book recently just to get a feel for how a well-known photographer went about his work. Its a pretty good book, although, a lot of the pictures have similarities, making some of the narratives a little repetitive: Most of them were taken only a little ways from his car. He used a yellow 15 filter on a large number of them. All of them seem to have had a technical problem to overcome (too much contrast, or this tone blends with that tone, or his favorite...this negative was very difficult to print).
One thing that I did notice that was strikingly different about a lot of his photographs was that he didn't stick to just one film or just one developer. Most of what I hear on forums and primers and the like seem to echo the opposite of that. Find a film you like, stick with it, and do similarly with processing until you feel confident to experiment. Ansel appears to do more than experiment though. He presents each situation as if he knew the nuances of exposing, developing, and printing with various films, developers, and papers (even so much as mixing different developers together). To me, It is really quite astonishing. Ansel truly appears to be a technical genius (say what you like about his photos being mere postcards, although i'd like to not open that can of worms for this discussion). Am I more astonished than I should be at this? Or am I just not knowledgeable enough to recognize flowery representation of mediocrity? He did, afterall, write the book himself. Brent Roberts B'ham....Alabama....not England - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
