Master Photography:
Study the Masters of Photography
Learning composition from the masters
Ansel Adams: "You don't take a photograph, you make it."
Listen to these great interviews with Ansel (real player is needed which you can download free)
Also watch this very informative multimedia presentation of Ansel from SFMOMA Ansel Adams at 100
Not to get too geeky right off the bat…but let’s talk about the Zone System developed by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer in 1941—a very important concept. Click on the link above and you’ll see that the spectrum goes from pure black (Zone 0) to pure white of the paper being printed on (Zone X). The idea is to cover most or all of these zones in your final print. Its use helps you to visualize the final photograph with a dynamic range of tones, which really “pops.”.jpg){kind=link}
However, more than just a tool for developing and printing (or your digital exposure and Photoshop,) it is a way to really see the light you are writing with, remember that’s the etymology of photo (light) graphy (writing.)
I suggest that you start spotting zones even while driving or walking—“that snow is zone X, the dark, dark shade is zone 0, there’s a zone VI!”
We’ll cover the Zone system in more detail, but like the cut out card for framing (see Photowalking if you haven’t yet) it’s a great tool to get used to and play with.
Still my favorite photographer of life in action, Henri Cartier Bresson has some pithy quotes about composition:
“Our eye must constantly measure, evaluate. We alter our perspective by a slight bending of the knees; we convey the chance meeting of lines by a simple shifting of our heads a thousandth of an inch…. We compose almost at the same time we press the shutter, and in placing the camera closer or farther from the subject, we shape the details – taming or being tamed by them.”
“One has to tiptoe lightly and steal up to one's quarry; you don't swish the water when you are fishing.”
“I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us.”
“Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.”
“I went to Marseille. A small allowance enabled me to get along, and I worked with enjoyment. I had just discovered the Leica. It became the extension of my eye, and I have never been separated from it since I found it. I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to "trap" life - to preserve life in the act of living. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.”
“Only a fraction of the camera's possibilities interests me - the marvelous mixture of emotion and geometry, together in a single instant.”
A brief video of this great photographer's work
Another cool little video
An interview with Charlie Rose, it's long and better questions certainly could have been asked but worth a look (the begining with Richard Avedon is great)
Annie Leibovitz
A brief video with my fellow SFAI (San Francisco Art Institute) alum about how she moved into nature photography. Stay tuned folks, much more to follow...