How Ansel Adams Changed Photography 

5:17 I think you got dodge and burn mixed up. When you dodge, it leaves the area brighter as you are stopping the light from hitting the paper. When you burn, it darkens the image as you allow more light to hit the paper. It's the opposite of a negative where more light = brighter image.

To truly understand and appreciate Ansel Adams photography, you need to see one of his prints in person. It's literally like seeing the Grand canyon all your life in books or on TV and then you see it in real life.

In a previous career as a commercial printer one of the jobs I has was printing the posters and books of Ansel Adams through Little Brown and Company, the publisher. There was a special high tack dense black and a grey (Ansel Adams Grey) that we used as well as other specialized materials to get the cleanest dot on a printing press. We were also using the highest dpi in the industry at the time for detail. First time through the press was the duotone pass. Let it dry then run it through again for a high gloss varnish. Let that dry. Then turn the sheet upside down and run it through the press one more time to "polish" the sheet - essential removing all of the spray powder used to keep the sheets from sticking together. Best job ever, but that was back in the late 80's. I found a picture of Ansel and Dave Gardner (Gardner Lithograph) on a press check in a drawer in the pressroom. Still got that today.

I’m not sure Ansel used portra 400 like the film borders suggest, but I’m excited to watch the rest

I don't know a lot about photographer that's why I didn't know of him but seeing his work right now it looks so amazing he definitely was a legend and a master of photography

Read his autobiography about a year ago He was very talented and complex beyond his landscape photography. I have a couple reproductions of his prints in my home office

My dad was a well-known commercial photographer for over 70 years and used view cameras (the ones with the bellows) almost exclusively. His largest was a monster 16x20 Deardorf with a 5" lens, used mostly for taking really high resolution photos and transparencies of very small objects, like diamonds and jewelry. It stood about 9' tall. He used all the tricks and techniques also used by Adams (and all commercial photographers of that era) and I used to watch him work in the darkroom all the time. To a small boy it all looked like magic. I'm glad to see you taking an interest in the old masters, like Adams. My dad met him once in the 1950s, but never talked much about the encounter.

3030: ”How Aidin Robbins changed the history of filmmaking”

Adams began using lighter cameras, the older he got. He used a Hasselblad and tested the early Hassie models for Victor Hasselblad. In the last year of his life he used a Leica, though not exclusively. His biography is great reading, and the PBS American Masters program on Adams is excellent. It’s very instructive to go see his work in an art museum and look at it firsthand.

Seeing the enlarger made me miss my dark room class in college - also I think you mixed the dodging and burning effects in the video but great video anyways!

Ansel Adams vision is still alive today. Now it's our job to protect it. Bravo Meistro.

Loved it man.The trend photography and videography sometimes forget the rich concepts and masters of our arts, and going back to them always makes us "level up the game" (hate that expression, maybe "developing more our arts"?) and love it more. The majority of landscape photographers pratically have a base on the form of Adams and romantic painting like David Friedrich and his "Wanderer above the sea of fog", so they do, or try to do, take less photos, they observe and apreciate more before taking a photo, it's kind of a philosophy on how to apreciate, observe and truly see nature and express how our eyes, heart and mind had a emotional connection with the scene. A slow rythim and living a full experience and love for our home (Earth), our nature. In this liquid world, where everything is so fast, everything is always quickly changing, a slow pace maybe can be all we need to live well and be at peace, that's one of the lessons I get with Adams and other landscape photographers, but hey, I have always been a nature's lover and surfer since kid hahahah.

Great video! Those photos of the waterfalls actually feature an extremely low horizon with the tops of the mountains just below the top of the frame. Same basic concept though and you're correct he uses extreme horizons to enhance his style!

Bro you bouta be the next one in the history of filmmaking I’ll see you there 👀

his great granddaughters went to my elementary and middle school!!

That was exceedingly well put. When you started by saying “I got interested in him several weeks ago…” I literally rolled my eyes, but luckily, age has taught me humility so I kept watching, and I’m glad I did.

You appear to be a younger man but the quality of your video seems to belie your apparent youth. I am an old lady and quite in awe of your production. I regret I won't be here long enough to see the amazing things you will accomplish in the future. You have a great life ahead.

It’s easy to forget that with a view camera, Adams composed all his photos with the groundglass image upside-down and reversed left to right. Try that sometime!

Correction to time stamp 5:16 - 5:28: DODGE and BURN in printing a negative causes the opposite effect from exposing. Dodging reduces light on specific areas of the paper (though all those paper shapes at the end of a wire) so the paper will be bright / whiter. Burning (with the holes in stiff paper or cardboard) increases light at specific areas and causes darkening of the printed paper. Did this all this in my younger days, pain in the ars to get just right, using up loads of paper to get the final print just right. Also, IMHO, it is a lot easier to compose (visually) a photo with a larger camera under a drape than with a small one. It is so hard for me to see all the elements in a scene when one eye is glued to a view finder with light filling in the space on the sides or on the 3" back screen in the daylight. But at least I won't come hope with a backache after lugging tons of camera gear and tripod when using a smaller (FF or APS-C) camera.

Keep going Aidin, you’re an inspiration.

I really enjoyed your video and found a great deal of admiration for the amount of effort you put into it. You grasped and presented the concept of his work at a higher than average level. You didn't just skimm the surface, you really went pretty deep! I studied the Zone System a few years ago and was taught that Ansel Adams developed his system to a degree that was very scientific. He used spot meters to read a subject scene and took many notes that he would later use in the lab. He purchased large lots of film and paper because he knew that when doing so the materials had been made with the same batches of chemicals. He made sure his materials came from the same batches. When manufacturers produced film or paper they eventually had to use new chemicals because they were spent... but even though they used the same formulas with the same measured ingredients, the final product varied in sensitivity always giving different results in the lab. So when he set up his cameras and evaluated a scene, he took his readings and already knew what the print would look like in his mind! He really had a true visualization of the scene. Using his Zone System he would know at the time of making the exposure that he would either have to contract or expand the zones in the image (according to whether he got high contrast or low contrast readings). He used the information from the readings and used it to process the film, as well as when developing the paper. He used Spectrometers to learn about the density of the batches of film he had to ensure that he would accurately get the desired results... every single time!!! When printing his images he often wouldn't just use the tools you mentioned... he would use his hands and fingers to dodge or burn parts of his prints. He would twist and gnarl his fingers to apply what he wanted to them. I don't know if it would be worth it for you to do a little more investigation into the process of using the Zone System and maybe making a video about it? Thanks for bringing back some good memories and sharing some very awesome knowledge

Good video! A small point though. Adams is always credited with the creation of the zone system. A photographer called Fred Archer contributed a lot to it as well. Ansel Adams went out of his way to give Archer equal credit for the Zone System, he said. "I take this opportunity to restate that the Zone System is not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles of sensitometry, worked out by Fred Archer and myself at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, around 1939-40".

Thanks for making this video, Aidin. It is an entertaining and concise overview of Adams’ work and process. I discovered his images in 1979 on my first visit to Yosemite and have based my own professional photographic process on his teachings ever since. By chance, I was fortunate to visit his darkroom in Carmel - unfortunately, he wasn’t there at the time but it was an experience nevertheless. It’s great that you have shared this video with your younger audience. His books, ‘The Camera’, ‘The Negative’ and ‘The Print’ are still relevant today. In fact, I believe that Ansel Adams would have been a brilliant digital photographer and shown us how to get the most from a pixel ‘negative’.

Best part of this video, is talking about "Visualization". I learnt that, before i do a click, wait for a minute, think about the composition and tell a story. Every pic should be like a single frame from a movie, thanks for the teaching.

Best ever clear, concise description of Ansel Adams and several of his techniques. Excellent!

that slow blur effect on the old photo was incredible!

Aidin Robbins is for sure underrated

Great video. You've overlooked the contributions of Peter Henry Emerson in terms of the conception of photography as an art. His landscapes had people thinking that way in late 1800s.

Glad that you came across him and researched Ansel about the art of photography in the earlier years. He had inspired me in my early days of photography during the 70’s and enjoyed many of his books including, “The Negative” and “The Print”. He could only carry so many film holders with him on his trips (2 pieces of film per holder), so every image had to be composed, focussed and exposed correctly. Was lucky to see a show of his work in Toronto including his famous “Moonlight Hernandez” image which was simply stunning to see in person. He was a true master photographer and conservationist. Ansel was also a concert pianist and busted his nose during the devasting 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Great video!

I love this! I’ve loved photography for years but never knew it’s history, thank you for this

Love how much effort you put into editing this one

You expose paper under the enlarger and develop with chemistry. Nice to see Ansel remembered.

Thank you for such an inspiring video. I already loved Adams' work before, but this in-depth look has renewed my admiration for him. And for you as well, for bringing up such important issues.

Love the mood lighting of the talking head shot portions! You should do more videos like this! Great video.

This was a beautiful essay on a wonderful photographer - man amazing video Aidin :)

Love it man, great content! I especially needed to hear the part about visualization, spray and pray far too often. Heading out for a backpacking trip this weekend, so this video was perfect timing as well!

He loves high dynamic rage with a lot of contrast

“It’s the negative stupid.” Km pretty sure he did not spend too much time dodging and but Ing because that’s his quote. His focus was on the perfect negative, from which he could make the perfect print. This was why he developed the zone system and what pre visualization was all about. Picking your shadow in the scene, exposing for it, picking your highlight with details, and developing for it, after calculating the number of stops between the two values you would determine how to develop (push, pull, normal) to “place the highlight where you had pre. Visualized it. Sorry, I’m old. I spent my high school years learning the zone system…

Thanks for sharing your learning and analysis through his work. Open up a bunch horizons for me! Thanks mate and keep up with the videos.

Yooo Aidin, I really enjoyed this format! I Definitely learned some important photography history and the way you present it is just perfect, it keeps the attention so well!💪🏼💪🏼

I really enjoyed the concept of the video, the style of conveying information together with the slick animation and sound design was very satisfying. Thanks a lot for this great video!

I love the production quality of this video! and the story as well. You nailed it Aidin!!

Awesome Video. Well written. Well edited. Great presenter! You truly understand Adams and are going to become a photographer that would make him proud! Great work.

Fantastic as always Aidin! Super cool to see the crazy amounts of work and thought that go into a photo like that. 😀

This is a good, short summary, I think; a whirlwind tour in ten minutes. From my perspective the highlights of his technique were, 1) everything is in focus, 2) the resulting image looks sharp (high resolution). 1 and 2 go together, and were tenets of the f64 Group (not just Adams); the overall effect is similar to what the eye and brain accomplish when you're looking at something, like a landscape. 1 and 2 are also contradictory; that, is if you increase depth of field (by making the aperture smaller) you also make the resolution worse -- so you have to use large format to compensate: more resolution owing to larger negative size, along with tilt of the lens plane. 3) range of tone control. As he often observed, the tonal range of a scene can vary wildly, whereas the tonal range of the negative is fixed. So you have to control the exposure and development of the negative so that you get a meaningful rendering of the tonal range in the negative (and print) -- the Zone System. What ends up happening is that the proportion of Zone I, and of Zone IX -- in terms of the area of the whole print -- is low. And you don't have large areas of either black or white that lack detail. That's hard to do, and Adams was probably the best at it. Other features worth mentioning are 4) dark skies, 5) extreme horizon placement (either v. high or v. low) 6) lots of dark areas (Zones I, II, and III). 7) A general sense that the subject is sitting for a portrait (even if it's a rock or a tree and not a person).

Dope video man! I had a calendar with his work several years ago which was part of my inspiration for getting into photography!

I Sense more Style Breakdowns coming up real soon. Also I'm ashamed for not knowing he who really was, well Thanks for the kewl insight brother :”))

Your video style is getting better and better with every video man! I am addicted! ❤ and this was the best video essay i have seen on Ansel Adams so far.

Thanks for sharing. Your observations about how Adams composed his shots was very helpful. Great video, sir

Thank you for taking the time to make this video. Your presentation is second to none.

love this video and also how you brought the conversation aspect into this

This is awesome, I had to watch this for my Art 111 class in college. Great job man.

Glad people still re-discover Ansel Adams. Challenge yourself and go for a hike with 10 sheet films loaded, or one 120 film! Besides, Adams also gave lectures without muzak in the background, which helped a lot of his students focus on what he actually had to say. Might be worth a thought.

He co-developed the zone system with his friend and associate, Minor White. Thanks for the nice video.

OK, Aiden, how about a video on the incredible but largely unknown West Coast photographer Don Worth? I would love to see what you produce.

Photography is a trade it's the Creator that puts the art into the trade that makes it unique

Love your thumbnails, and the Parallax effect on Ansel’s photos! You should make videos on both!

This was terrific! I wanted a swift backgrounder on Mr Adams. You nailed it. Many thanks,

Nice video! I had a darkroom in the past and used Ansel Adams zone system for exposing photopaper.

You always had me convinced that Ansel shot all those on Kodak portra 400. Until the coffee kicked in and I remember that is a color film which I clearly don’t shoot enough from. Nice channel. I will give it a sub.

Wow Aidin! Excellent synopsis of Ansel Adam’s and his work!

this has been amazing clear-concise.really found the presentation fascinating

There is so much I love about this ❤️

Great Aidin! Thank you very much! All the content, the infos, scenes, your editing!! Really great!!

I really appreciate this type of video. Instead of another tutorial video....this is more theory. I think this way of thinking can even be applied to other current creative avenues.

Film used in camera is "negative" with means that source of light wil darken it. This dark area from film will allow less light to hit the paper so this area will be lighter In final photo. Using this little circle on a stick you showed will make photo even brighter becouse you block light that hits it (paper is white). Big cartboard with hole in it will darken the image in the spot you allow the light to hit the paper, so it is exacly oposite of what you said.

Amazing talent. I believe he would have loved Table Mountain in Cape Town South Africa when she has her cloud blanket on

Loved this video Aidin. Heard a lot about Ansel always but glad you came up and described WHY he is such a big name. Even more respect for him now.

Great video! I’m intrigued to study him and his work more. Thanks Aidin!

Thank you for making this, I think a lot of photographers don’t know that much about him. By far one of the most technically developed photographers imo he understood exposure extremely well and that photo of the full moon overlooking the village in new mexico(I think) he took that without a light meter bc he forgot his. He talks about it in his three books that he published. He calculated the exposure by estimating the luminance of the moon and the cloud coverage and all these other variables.

Nice! Ansel Adam is one of the many people who inspired me to do photography! I love his work!

Great job Aiden, so enjoyed your documentary about Ansel Adams 👍

You are a prodigy, dude! Amazing! I also loved his work but couldn't explain why, now I know haha

Thank you for this awesome highlights of Ansel Adam's!

Great edit! Informative and well-paced.

This video is absolutely phenomenal. Great work, man.

Love Ansel Adams! This was a great video! Had no idea on some of the stuff!

Love your videos ever since I can remember! Are you gonna do an updated what's I'm my camera bag?

The effort you put into your videos is phenomenal! I can only aspire to be as hard-working as you at almost double your age haha!

this is amazing i've learned alot of epic new things! would love to see more

Awesome job. I liked how you changed your studio to match the theme of the video.

LOVED your video Aidin. Keep up the amazing work. 😀

I like your enthusiasm, could I offer a few additions to your findings? Ansel didn't chose B & W photography over colour, there wasn't any usable colour film process when he started out and he was still underwhelmed by colour film in his latter days when it was freely available. He didn't invent the Zone System, Fred Archer and Ansel turned the much earlier work of Hurter and Driffield into a handy system for photographers. Group f/64 was a reaction against the early 20th century style known as Pictorialism and a promotion of a clear, sharp style of photography. The two versions of _Monolith, the Face of Half Dome_ you show don't differ because of dodging and burning but by using a yellow filter in one and a red filter in the other, hence the darker sky. But the best way to get a proper sense of Adams's work is to see actual prints: even the best reproductions are no real substitute for the meticulously printed, stunningly high-quality silver gelatin originals, often selenium toned for extra richness. Most of his work conveys a tremendous impression of the light at the moment of shooting. And bear in mind he wasn't just a fine landscape photographer, he was a very observant and sometimes mischievous worker: some images have that mischief behind them and once seen, you won't be able to unsee it!

Thanks for sharing this much of knowledge with us🙌

Aidin is amazing

Yes! One of my favorites. edit: are you going back to style breakdowns aidin?

Another enjoyable video Aidin. Really enjoyed it and learnt lots of new things. Again it left me feeling inspired to go out and make photos.

D amt of work u put in making video, hatsoff bro 🙏🏽... luv frm India 🇮🇳

Hi Aidin nice video! Do you think you could make a behind the scenes of what your tutorials look like? like maybe what lights you use, where you put them, stuff like that

This is cool, Aidin! I learned a lot.

Fantastic video. Really glad I stumbled upon this video. I'll have to check out the rest of your channel.

Really really cool production on this video. The portra 400 border around bw photos bothered me a little ngl but literally everything else was sick. Keep it up man!

I'm from indonesia...i dont really understand wht re you talking about ...but the other side...i just focus and exactly intrested on your quality...the real quality of content...Good luck...hope you reach more subscriber

Black and white is the only way to bring out the true contrast of subject matter where color blends.

Love this Aidin. Great video man!

Awesome video love Ansel Adams he’s a big inspiration of mine

He got burning and dodging back wards. Burning makes that piece of the iomage darker and dodging makes an area lighter in exposure and/or tone.

Good work, as always. Keep 'em coming.

Love this video and was about to show to my middle school class, but I can't cause you said "hell" just once. So close to being perfect. Just something to consider for future videos.

6:34, nice use of old footage, big ups to that