Today, the mobile phone makes everyone a photographer. But how many people can create what they actually visualize in their head?
For Ansel Adams, what he saw in front of him was different than what he pictured in his mind’s eye. So he created the ‘zone system,’ allowing him to play with the aperture to achieve different hues of black and white.
Of course, he had to do all this before he even took the picture. Ansel Adams was applying filters before the Polaroid. Today, we can take any image and photoshop afterward to make it look like we want. We also have the luxury of sharing it immediately. But the abundance of photos drowns out great talent. Scarcity worked out in Adam’s favor.
Yet, Ansel Adams was excited about the future of what would become electronic photography. New mediums require new ways of thinking. But the photographic intention remains the same:
“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”
Ansel Adams