Photographer Ansel Adams On Previsualization

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“Advice on how to visualize your photos, from a rare interview with Ansel Adams. Photo visualization was so important to Ansel Adams that he made it the first chapter of his book on photography.”
“Don’t miss this story of Ansel Adams’ breakthrough when he first learned to visualize a photograph, moving from amateur to the true artistry he was known for. Then see previously unreleased footage of Ansel explaining exactly what he means by “visualization” and the points to master to be an “instinctive” photographer. All footage filmed in Yosemite National Park where Ansel lived and photographed for decades. By watching and following his advice you can advance your photography to new heights!”
View more in Marc Silber’s series on Ansel Adams here.
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13 Quotes By Photographer Stephen Johnson

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Enjoy this collection of quotes by photographer Stephen Johnson.
“There were a huge variety of movements in photography during the 20th century, some based on 19th century landscape photography, some evolved as a reaction against realism in painting and photography, some evolved has a way of chasing the aesthetic of impressionism in painting. A single characterization really doesn’t get at what photography and beauty meant in the 20th century.” – Stephen Johnson
“It is clear, that the way I think about landscape photography in my world, largely of came out of the f64 group of photographers such as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogine Cunningham, Charles Scheeler and others. They relished the reality of the large format camera, and its clarity, seeing in that reality a great potential for abstraction. Their work became a large part of what landscape photography became.” – Stephen Johnson
“In the process of evolving this documentary power and the very real issues confronting us at the end of the 20th century, the beauty of the world often got lost in the accepted aesthetic of the Fine Art photography world. The famous quote by Cartier-Bresson about Weston and Adams photographing trees when the world was falling apart, comes to mind. Despite the enormous work and sometimes horrifyingly real world experiences it took to make them, it was easier to have photographs appreciated depicting the angst of the human experience. The dark side, the street photography of tragic circumstances, or peculiar people was the art, rather than responses to the beauty of the natural world, much less an appreciation for the wonder that it represents.” – Stephen Johnson
“It is come to the point that the world of landscape photography seems to exist in a place of perpetual sunrises and sunsets, the golden light, the perfect light, the waiting for the light, as though the ordinary experience of living seeing an experience in the planet does not in and of itself constitute a remarkable experience.” – Stephen Johnson
“I’m trying to make people aware that the Photography’s power to portray the real world is not only a power to portray our real human tragedy, but to also portray real human wonder, real human complexity and real human nuance and intricacy. The world is an intricate and nuanced place and I hope that photography can start to move toward understanding, appreciating, and portraying the common wonders of the world, rather than just the special wonders of the world.” – Stephen Johnson
“My own work is seeking to appreciate light in a different way than seems to have been previously appreciated in color photography. My affection for pastels, a more real world saturation, and not making transparent and open shadows into deep black holes (as film has traditionally done) is certainly an aesthetic I hope to propagate with whatever power my own work has to inspire.” – Stephen Johnson
“Because it is such a young media, the way we photograph, our own practices as well as those of our predecessors, have really made the history of photography. What we expect photography to be, has been largely determined by the photographs that we’ve seen and how we have understood the photographs that preceded ours.” – Stephen Johnson
“Photography has always been seen as wondrous, and much of that wonder came from its ability to render the real world.” – Stephen Johnson
“How photographers have approached these issues, their sense of truth in photography, their own sense of duty, how that has got folded into their work and both the interpreted power and documentary power of photography has influenced all of our perceptions of what photography is. We have tended the sub-categorize photography into photojournalism, landscape, documentary, fine arts, and some would argue we have different expectations from those different areas. I belive that regardless of the genre within photography, the understanding that remains a fundamental aspect of our perception of what photography is, is that it is in fact an image that was formed by a lens of the scene before the camera. However that might be influenced by our knowledge that photography can be manipulated into something that was not in front of the lens, we still have this instinct to believe, that is still at the heart of what makes this care about photographs.” – Stephen Johnson
“I try never to do anything to a photograph that I would characterize as enhancement or embellishment. I’ve said over and over again on many continents and for many years that the world is already self-embellished, it doesn’t need me to somehow make it better.” – Stephen Johnson
“Part of what we love about the photography process is the vicarious experience of a sense of place being appreciated without being in that place. It is actually inherent in photography’s basic power to let us know a world at some visual level that we haven’t actually seen.” – Stephen Johnson
“My fundamental fascination remains the photograph as witness to reality.” – Stephen Johnson
“The greatest wonder I experience in seeing new photography today is directly related to how many more people feel empowered to pursue photography and the variety of insights they bring to the medium.” – Stephen Johnson
Read our conversation here.
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10 Quotes By Photographer Christopher Burkett

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Enjoy this collection of quotes by photographer Christopher Burkett.

“I would come out of the chapel after communion and occasionally I would see the world transformed, filled with light.” – Christopher Burkett

“I knew that if it was real, which it was that there must be some way to photograph that.” – Christopher Burkett

“The things that I’m trying to present in my photography are things that are absolutely real in the world, subtle qualities that many people don’t see.” – Christopher Burkett

“I’m working within a very limited box, in terms of possibilities. But, by working within that box to the maximum amount … it’s like a form of discipline, it is a form of discipline, and there is a strength and a depth that is possible within that discipline that doesn’t happen in any other way.” – Christopher Burkett

“Traditionally, art was not meant to be a worship of the ego of the artist, it was meant to be an expression of God’s grace, of divine things.” – Christopher Burkett

“I’m concerned about myself, what I’m doing, what my spiritual answer is rather than what I think other people should be doing. If my religion has any value it’s in my life and what I do. That’s its power and that should be evident. If it isn’t then it won’t be obvious. You know what I mean?” – Christopher Burkett

“This crystal clarity is part of the experience of trying to see the world as it truly is. The world is full of an infinite number of details. It’s only our blindness, in one form or another, that doesn’t allow us to see that.” – Christopher Burkett

“The truth is that if we lived .. I was trying to find a word for it earlier, all terms are limiting … in a state of divine grace everything would be even more real. That’s exactly what I’m trying to portray in my photography, that moment of … I don’t like to put a word on it because it’s too limiting. As soon as you put a word on it, it becomes a concept rather than a reality. And what I’m trying to present with my photography is that almost super real quality, not fake real, but super real. I’m trying to show something that is precious and real, that most people do not see.” – Christopher Burkett

“I have terrible vision without glasses. I didn’t know that until I was in first grade. Most of your visual processing mechanism is formed by the age of six. I couldn’t see the features on someone’s face unless I was about a foot and a half away from them. I learned to identify people by their shape and the way they walked. I had no idea. I had no idea at all. Then I got glasses. It was quite a revelation. All of a sudden the world was transformed with these details. I’ve tried not to lose that sense of astonishment and wonder. I never knew there were leaves on trees, I could only see if they had fallen. I’d never seen clouds before. The moon in the sky had been a fuzzy blob. I could never see stars, some of the brightest ones were a very faint globule, out of focus, about the size the moon would normally be. That whole sense of incredible wonder, of miraculousness has stayed with me. The whole world is full of marvelous details.” – Christopher Burkett

“I don’t try to justify what I do. I think the work is strong enough to speak for itself. I don’t mean that to sound arrogant, but to me it’s not an issue, because I know what I’m doing is unique and I feel comfortable about that. When I’m out there, I’m not trying to look for a picture that looks like a picture I’ve seen before. I’m trying to see the world fresh and clean, and yet with a knowledge of the history of photography. I don’t think of working within a tradition, I think of working within the world, within life.” – Christopher Burkett

Read our conversation here.
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9 Great Quotes By Photographer Kenro Izu

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Enjoy this collection of quotes by photographer Kenro Izu.

“Feeling is a very important aspect because my subject is sacred sites. There is a very strong spiritual feeling regardless of what the religion was. The important thing is the spirituality of these monuments. It’s not just a photograph of a building. The building has to be there to photograph but the atmosphere is what I’m really interested in. The building is a representation of that spiritual side. Without architecture there is nothing I can photograph. But what I’m photographing is atmosphere, air actually surrounding that monument.” – Kenro Izu

“I try to teach students to try to see with your eyes not through the camera because through the camera is always something different.” – Kenro Izu

“If you don’t see it you don’t get it. If you see you’ll get it.” – Kenro Izu

“When I’m fresh things always surprise me somehow. But if I see something everyday for one month then it doesn’t surprise me anymore.” – Kenro Izu

“I took so many pictures and I never gave back. I thought in taking we have to give something.” – Kenro Izu

“We photographers are privileged to have a communication tool like the camera. It’s great communication.  I have to use that privilege for good not just for my career or artistic or personal business.” – Kenro Izu

“People always ask me why I am photographing stone monuments. It’s the closest thing to something that lasts an eternity. But look here there is a border line between the sand and the stone. It’s so vague. When I saw this I thought, “Stone is not forever.” Everything eventually goes back to the soil or water.” – Kenro Izu

“In general what I learned was in the west something eroded, rotten, disintegrated is not something beautiful. Fresh is better than dying. Sometimes I got very weird comments when I photographed a dead or dying flower. They said, “Why don’t you take it when it’s really beautiful?” That’s a different point of view. One might think these roses are ugly, that two days before they were much prettier. I see both ways. When they were in full bloom, peak, they were beautiful, of course. But I see this as equally beautiful. In a way it is more beautiful to me. I sometimes wonder if that is one difference between eastern and western.” – Kenro Izu

“I try to search my own sense of beauty. And where I can see it, I use it as a study, thinking about what is life and what is death. It’s a big subject and I still can’t figure out what it’s about. But by observing I can sometimes feel … but I can’t really say.” – Kenro Izu

Read our conversation here.
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A Glimpse Into The Mind Of Photographer John Szarkowski

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Photographer, curator, historian, and critic … “During his tenure as Director at MoMA, John Szarkowski redefined the world’s understanding of the art of photography and established himself as one of the giants of 20th Century art history. “ He is the author of seminal books including The Photographer’s Eye and Looking At Photographs.
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10 Great Quotes By Adam Fuss

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Enjoy this collection of quotes by photographer Adam Fuss.
“I was attracted to photography because it was technical, full of gadgets, and I was obsessed with science. But at some point around fifteen or sixteen, I had a sense that photography could provide a bridge from the world of science to the world of art, or image. Photography was a means of crossing into a new place I didn’t know.” – Adam Fuss
“Photography is compellingly attractive because it is recording light. But it’s not so much for me the light in photographs that I’ve been attracted to, it is the experience of light in my life that interested me in photography.” – Adam Fuss
“We’re so conditioned to the syntax of the camera that we don’t realize that we are running on only half the visual alphabet… It’s what we see every day in the magazines, on billboards and even on television. All those images are being produced basically the same way, through a lens and a camera. I’m saying there are many, many other ways to produce photographic imagery, and I would imagine that a lot of them have yet to be explored.” – Adam Fuss
“I would say that the lens is a manipulation of an image. To me the photogram is a non-manipulation of the object and the interaction of the object with light and the direct recording of that. To me that’s pure photographic imagery. As soon as you have a lens, you’re reinterpreting the outside world.” – Adam Fuss
“I see the photogram as being much more truthful and much more honest because it’s just recording light. There is no manipulation of that light, in the way that a lens manipulates light.” – Adam Fuss
“An echo is a good way to describe the photogram, which is a visual echo of the real object. That’s why I like to work with the photogram, because the contact with what is represented is actual. It’s as if the border between the world and the print is osmotic.” – Adam Fuss
“All of photography is the recording of light. It is all representational.” – Adam Fuss
“The scale is one of the things that makes an image more honest.” – Adam Fuss
“What strikes the inside of our eyes is completely open to interpretation. We don’t know what strikes the inside of our eyes because our brain gets in the way. What strikes the inside of the eyes is upside down for start. So if the brain can do that, it can do anything. We learn a lot of things about seeing. We learn how to see.” – Adam Fuss
“Just do it until you figure out what you are doing. Then you do some more. Well, for myself I find that I need to do something again and again before I understand what it is that I am actually doing.” – Adam Fuss
Read more in our conversation here.
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20 Quotes By Photographer Arnold Newman

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Enjoy this collection of quotes by photographer Arnold Newman.
“There are many things that are very false about photography when it is accepted without question. You must recognize and interpret it as you would any other art form, and then maybe it is a little more than real.” – Arnold Newman
“A lot of photographers think that if they buy a better camera they’ll be able to take better photographs. A better camera won’t do a thing for you if you don’t have anything in your head or in your heart.”
― Arnold Newman
“We don’t take pictures with cameras – we take them with our hearts and minds.” – Arnold Newman
“The camera is a mirror with a memory, but it cannot think.” – Arnold Newman
“Visual ideas combined with technology combined with personal interpretation equals photography. Each must hold it’s own; if it doesn’t, the thing collapses.” – Arnold Newman
“Influences come from everywhere but when you are actually shooting you work primarily by instinct. But what is instinct? It is a lifetime accumulation of influence: experience, knowledge, seeing and hearing. There is little time for reflection in taking a photograph. All your experiences come to a peak and you work on two levels: conscious and unconscious.” – Arnold Newman
“There are very few Cartier-Bressons, Brassais, and W. Eugene Smiths in the world, but to me these men are photographers. They are artists because they make statements that all of us wish we could have made.” – Arnold Newman
“I didn’t set out to do something different so much as do something that interested me. I wasn’t trying to be avant-garde – that’s being fashionable. You don’t set out to revolutionize art, you make statements for yourself.” – Arnold Newman
“The photographer must be a part of the picture.” – Arnold Newman
“I don’t think any student, any photographer, any person should take pictures the way I take pictures. I build them because it’s the way I am, and that’s the way I should be. If I try to be something else and try to take pictures or talk to you humorously because I think I’ll get a few laughs, no. Somebody else, like Duane Michals might be basically funny. He is that way, he makes me laugh all the time. But he is being himself. A writer must be himself, a painter, all of us – or else suddenly we lose what we have.” – Arnold Newman
“A preoccupation with abstraction, combined with an interest in the documentation of people in their natural surroundings, was the basis upon which I built my approach to portraiture. The portrait of a personality must be as complete as we can make it. The physical image of the subject and the personality traits that image reflects are the most important aspects, but alone they are not enough…We must also show the subject’s relationship to his world either by fact or by graphic symbolism. The photographer’s visual approach must weld these ideas into an organic whole, and the photographic image produced must create an atmosphere which reflects our impressions of the whole.” – Arnold Newman
“There are no rules and regulations for perfect composition. If there were we would be able to put all the information into a computer and would come out with a masterpiece. We know that’s impossible. You have to compose by the seat of your pants.” – Arnold Newman
“I am always lining things up, measuring angles, even during this interview. I’m observing the way you sit and the way you fit into the composition of the space around you.” – Arnold Newman
“I think photography is a matter of controlling what’s in front of you and making it do your will. This, of course, implies absolute mastery over camera, medium, techniques, and the ability to work with the subject and get him willingly and happily without any self-conscious feeling to fall into those things which are natural to him. This is a very complicated thing to do in portraiture. Mine are deliberately self-conscious portraits and therefore contain no forced feeling of candidness… the subject is unaware of the fact that I am waiting – things begin to happen – the man begins to reveal himself. If the background becomes overwhelming and you lose the personality, then I have not made a good portrait and it is not a good picture. I think the world is full of intelligent people who are not really trying to be flattered; what they really want is to be understood”. The more I get to know my subject the more he gets to know me, and so often the pictures taken at the end of a sitting are much better both creatively and interpretively… A photographer is always in a state of preparing himself for a given moment… we have only an instant in which to think and act.” – Arnold Newman
“It seems to me that no one picture can ever be a final summation of a personality. There are so many facets in every human being that it is impossible to present them all in one photograph.” – Arnold Newman
“I’m convinced that any photographic attempt to show the complete man is utter nonsense, to an extent. We can only show, as best we can, what the outer man reveals; the inner man is seldom revealed to anyone, sometimes not even to the man himself. We have to interpret.” – Arnold Newman
“Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.”- Arnold Newman
“Fantasy is like poetry; it can point to the truth.” – Arnold Newman
“I don’t care what you do with that negative, you can retouch it, you can spit on it, you can grind it underfoot. The only thing that matters is if it is honest. If (the picture) is honest, you and everybody can tell. If it is dishonest, you and everybody can tell.” – Arnold Newman
“I often wonder whether I would have done as well in painting.” – Arnold Newman
“Photography is 1% talent and 99% moving furniture.” – Arnold Newman
Read more in The Essential Collection Of Photographers’ Quotes.
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