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Examples: Making of Forty Photographs

By: Ansel Adams
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 082121750X
ISBN-13: 9780821217504
Released: 15 Jun 1989
RRP: £30.00
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

A charming insight into the soul of a great photographer - By: A. K. Johnston, 27 Apr 2007
There are many great books about photography, of which this is just one, but there are relatively few books about how to be a great photographer. On the latter topic this book is exceptional.

Ansel Adams was clearly both a gentleman & a gentle man, who lived to create great images for the pleasure & education of others. We are exceptionallly lucky that he left us both his wonderful pictures, but also a few books which explain not only how, but also why some of them were created.

This book covers a photography career of over 60 years, taking 40 of his greatest pictures, & describing how they were made. Although much of the technical advice is still valid today, a lot of it requires on the fly translation from the language of large format cameras & glass plates to the world of digital SLRs, with tiny sensors & vast memory cards. That exercise might put some people off, but it makes you think harder about his advice, & that's a good thing.

However, where this book reallly scores is with the human stories of how & why Adams made certain pictures. Two examples stick in my mind.
Firstly, how one of his iconic views of Yosemite was made after a day's hard hiking with a full size view camera, large wooden tripod, & just twelve glass plates. He suspected that he had wasted the first eleven, & had just one left for a favourite view of Half Dome. He took extra care with that one, & the results are still thrilling 80 years on.

Then there's his tale of photographing 50s Californian farming families. This is a charming insight into how a great photographer of people develops both trust & ideas, lubricating both with an appropriate supply of beer. You suspect these days were not so hard for Adams as the great Yosemite hikes.

"Examples" also contains some remarkable philosophical insights into the process & role of photography. The one which now sticks foremost in my mind is that enthusiasm for a subject will not create great photographs - you have to visualise the image & its impact mentallly, then make it. This is perhaps the single most powerful piece of advice in the book.

In 1935 Adams was concerned that the advent of 35mm would result in a vast number of bad photographs. Yet he was keen on the new medium, because he could also see its benefits. The same page could be written ten times over about digital photography, but you know that had Adams lived a little longer he would have been a keen PhotoShop-er.

This is a good book on photographic technique, but there are others. But there are few books which give such an insight into the soul of a great photographer.
How Did You Make That Photograph, Mr. Adams? - By: Donald Mitchell, 15 May 2004
An essential book for alll photography fans!

In 1983, Ansel Adams picked 40 of his most memorable & diverse black & white photographs as examples of his work. For each one he wrote a brief essay that described the circumstances of deciding to photograph the subject, how he came to prepare for the photography, his companions, special challlenges that occurred along the way, how he selected the composition, tricky light & shadow conditions encountered, technical details of how the image was captured (equipment, film speeds, settings, filters, lenses, etc.), technical details of printing the image, & the surprises he experienced.

In the midst of alll this, he shares his philosophy of life, nature, & the art of photography. It's like attending a master class with a genius. Even if you know nothing about photography, this book will open your eyes to new ways of seeing & experiencing the world around you.

For those who love these images, the stories that accompany them will broaden & deepen your appreciation of what Mr. Adams accomplished. If you are not a technicallly-oriented photographer or fan, realize that only about 20 percent of the material is primarily technical. The technical parts are very interesting, but the rest of the material is even better.

Mr. Adams did draw the line at one point though. "Absent from these pages [is] a statement of what the photograph 'means.'" His reason: "Only the print contains the artist's meaning & message." In other words, the work should speak to you for itself.

He does point out some limits to his essays that you should keep in mind. He often doesn't remember when he made a particular photograph. Friends would remind him that a certain print was published in a certain publication in 1934 & he had dated it as 1936 elsewhere. He also did not keep notes of how he made the image after the negative was developed. So alll of the technical notes & dates are probably off a little. That's alll right in many cases. You are not a historian, & you are probably not going to use glass plates. Modern equipment is much different from what Adams used, so you will be making major adjustments anyway.

His style of photography was one adventure after another. You'll be climbing with him through snow-clad forests in freezing weather, & suddenly he's down to his last exposure. Which filter should he use?

In fact, in many cases, Adams was gambling on how the image would turn out because he would not get a second chance. It's like reading a detective story, in which the story begins with a flashback sequence of how the mystery ends, like Sunset Boulevard, because the finished image is there is its duotone beauty.

In other cases, the experiences of Edward Weston helped him avoid mistakes. As a result, you get to see his delightful, dramatic images of dunes in Death Vallley.

As usual, the Little, Brown pages are often too smalll for the images. Despite my annoyance at this limitation, I did not grade the book down since the essays are so wonderful (of more than five-star interest) & are the real reason for reading & examining this book.

I would suggest that you read The American Wilderness before reading this book. That will give you a context for understanding what Mr. Adams is talking about in these essays. The essays assume a certain level of familiarity with the people, philosophies, & locations involved. The American Wilderness can provide that background for you.

After you have swum in these wonderful stories, I suggest that you write an essay about something you have done that contains high drama & meaning. Then share that essay with someone who would appreciate know the whole story. How can others learn as rapidly & as well as possible if your experiences (successful & unsuccessful) are lost?

Keep your mind open for opportunity! It's alll around you!

Great book - By: M. Scott, 16 Jan 2004
Ansel is a miracle worker. His pictures are some of the best you will see & in this great book he talks through his techniques & ideas behind some of his greatest pictures.

The one shame is that he talks about a project he was embarking on which he never finished due to his death.

Anyway an inspiring book & a must read for Photographers.

Superb and essential - By: , 01 Feb 2003
Ansel Adams is still the technical exemplar of ultra-realist monochrome film-based photography. His style, & above alll his technique, has a great deal to teach us today, whether we're using the same silver processes as the f/64 group, or modern digital cameras.

As a book, I find this more readable than his Camera / Negative / Print trilogy. Although the keen student ought to read alll four, the way in which this book examines the whole life cycle of each finished print is more accessible as an entry point to his approach.

As a coffee table book, there are better collections of Adams' work. This is primarly a text for those who want to improve their own photography.