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[OM] ( OM ) Back to Ansel (no flames please !!)

Subject: [OM] ( OM ) Back to Ansel (no flames please !!)
From: "Brian Swale" <bj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 11:54:36 +1200
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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