P3D Re: f/64 & Ansel Adams

[egoldste@xxxxxx (Eric Goldstein)]

Bob H writes:

>Adams and Weston and
>two others were founders of the F/64 Group (sometimes referred to
>as 'school'). This was more of an inside joke to indicate 8 x 10
>cameras which can hardly be used at much wider openings
>because of no depth of field on anything near the camera. The
>group did not last long but had made history in its stance against
>the 'pictorialist' who made photos look like paintings by various
>manipulations...bromoil inks with paper negatives etc. The f/64
>school said photos should do what photography does best give
>sharp clear pictures few artists can match in detail. This is what
>stereo needs too!


A quick addendum... Adams' quest for as much DOF (but not necessarily as
much resolution) as he could muster remained with him his entire life...
few Ansel Adams pictures make use of selective focus and none of the
celebrated ones to my knowledge...

Weston on the other hand diverged from this considerably and clear sharp
detail is not a hallmark of many celebrated Weston images, but rather form
and composition... in fact many of the celebrated 'pictorialist' qualities.


Pictorialists BTW were not all undue manipulators of photographic
processes; combination printing was common but many times used to
compensate for the slow photographic materials of the day... Many of the
finer images from the period are noted to be painterly in the quality of
their light and composition without any high manipulation even for the time
and certainly not in the context of the modern manipulations we which we
are swamped daily.

For more information, a good starting place is Robert Leggat's informative
history of photography:

http://www.kbnet.co.uk/rleggat/photo/history/pictoria.htm


Eric G.



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