Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams Author: Visit Amazon's Michael Frye Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0240812433 | Format: EPUB
Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams Description
About the Author
Michael Frye has lived either on or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, and in that time has built up a reputation as one of the most exciting current practioners of fine landscape and nature photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography. His work is also featured in Landscape: The World's Top Photographers. His photographs have been published in over thirty countries around the world; magazine credits include National Wildlife, Outdoor Photographer, American Photo, Sunset, and Texas Highways.
- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Focal Press; 1 edition (January 20, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0240812433
- ISBN-13: 978-0240812434
- Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 9.1 x 0.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Eliot Porter were amongst the greatest landscape photographers of the twentieth century. Unlike many of today's photographers, they used film. The book "In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters: Digital Landscape Photography" tries to translate their techniques into the language of modern digital photography.
The first part of the book, called "Technical Foundations" deals with the basic techniques of digital photography with emphasis on how those techniques might be applied to landscape photography. Experienced users may find little new here, although the explanation of the zone system may introduce people who have mastered the histogram to another method of calculating exposure. At the same time, the explanations of the fundamentals may prove much too pithy for beginners. Perhaps the section will most help those already familiar with the basics to understand how to apply these techniques like the masters.
The second part of the book, entitled "Light, Composition and the Art of Seeing" evokes the masters, mostly by quoting their words. The images presented are primarily those of Frye, but those familiar with the masters will recognize that much of his work is clearly derived from their style, except for being captured digitally and usually in color. Although this aspect of photography is the most amorphous to describe in writing, Frye does a good job, and his lovely pictures, taken mostly in Yosemite and other favorite locations of Adams, are well worth studying.
The final part deals with "The Digital Darkroom: Editing, Processing and Printing" and it is here that Frye shows how I imagine the masters would use modern image processing software and hardware rather than the chemical darkroom.
From the on line book description, I was expecting something a bit different. Yet I am not at all disappointed. The description states that the book "[c]ontains a number of breathtaking works by Ansel Adams and other landscape masters such as Edward Weston and Elliot Porter." In 160 pages, there are only three images from Adams, and one each from Weston and Porter. With my own personal feelings about Ansel Adams' work, I looked forward to seeing more. But as I went through the book further and further, I realized that the real value of the book was not merely appreciating Adams' finished works, but rather Frye's own work and how he uses it to show HOW Adams did what he did in a systematic manner. Adams' manual filtering, dodging, burning, etc., are all brought forward into the age of digital photography and digital manipulation of those photographs. For anyone at least somewhat familiar with Adams' ability to "see" a photo before he even took it, as well as his darkroom magic to leave details in both deep shadows and bright highlights, Frye's step-by-step instruction actually helped me appreciate Adams' work even more.
Someone just beginning in photography who does not know what Ansel Adams did beyond taking nice looking pictures in black and white, would likely get lost very quickly in this book. Someone who has never gone beyond automatic settings with a camera will have a very difficult time following the book. It simply isn't for beginners. But an amateur photographer with at least reasonable experience using manual settings to get desired effects with either light or depth of field, will be able to appreciate this book and learn from it.
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