Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs by Ansel Adams
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Book Reviews of Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs
Book Review: beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book to give to my kids. My mother gave me one 20 years ago. Ansel Adams took portraits of my Great Grand Parents and put it in this book. I want my kids to have copies. If you are a photographer, there is a lot of info about how he took the pictures.Book Review: Learn from the bests.
Summary: 5 Stars
Buy it for the stunning photo, the excellence description and the passion for the live that you can read in this book.Book Review: Historica
Summary: 5 Stars
A detailed explanation of how America's most famous photographer worked to produce his greatest photographs.Book Review: Excellent Resource into the Mind of a Master
Summary: 4 Stars
This is truly a fantastic resource for those who want to "step into" the mind of a master photographer. On a different note, it is also an interesting historical perspective from somebody who has lived through the technological changes in photography and several different "movements" in art. Beyond just providing you with basic "EXIF" or exposure information on his shots, Adams has provided insight into, among other things, what lead up to "seeing" the shot, how he considered technical aspects (especially as it related to his Zone System), how he felt about the scene and his surroundings, and what he did in the darkroom in order to bring out the best in the shot. You also get a very good sense of Adams' philosophy on photography and just life in general.
I learned several interesting things about Adams from this book that I did not know previously - he bracketed shots quite a bit (which made me feel better about not getting the shot perfect the first time, every time), he spent as much time in "post processing" as he did shooting (which made me reconsider how I use modern equivalents like Photoshop and Aperture), even though he bracketed quite often, he really felt you got your best "base" for the shot from the negative, and thus he was a proponent of pre-visualizing shots.
This book is very easy to read and the photographs are nicely reproduced so you can get a sense of what Adams is talking about. It is also subtly dense. While you can read it in a very leisurely manner, picking up points here and there, it is also worthy of serious study. As I have reread favorite sections for a second and third time, I have picked up on nuances in his words that have help me understand the photo better and how I may apply his wisdom to my own photography.
Finally, this book has prompted me to do my own "Making of..." series for 40 of my photographs and write about it on my blog. In that sense, this book has really spurred me to be detail-oriented with my shooting and helped me creatively. It is worth the modest price and has provided me with at least ten-fold in satisfaction.
Book Review: A fascinating insight into the mind of a mater photographer
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a fascinating of how Ansel Adams came to make 40 of his photographs. Some of them are well known ("Monolith, The Face of the half Dome", "Clearing Winter Storm", "Moonrise - Hernandez, New Mexico", "Clearing Winter Storm", "Mount McKinley and Wonder Lake") others less so (for example, the portraits and still life). The accounts of each photograph include anecdotes about how the photograph came to be made and technical information about the film, exposure, f-stop, development and printing processes, and a little about composition. Adams does not attempt to explain the meaning of any of the images: as he says, "only the print contains the artist's meaning and message". If you are looking for a "cookbook" of bullet points that will improve your photography, then you will probably be disappointed, especially since many of the technique issues are specific to black and white medium-format film photography. However if you have a deep appreciation of photographic art and the classic images that define it then you will enjoy this insight into the mind of one of the great practitioners and learn from him.