A Tour Of Ansel Adam's Darkroom

One of our readers just emailed us this great video of landscape photographer Ansel Adam's darkroom. Michael Adams, Ansel's son, gives us a full tour of Ansel's home studio and shows some of his prints as well as much of his equipment. I currently have Adam's Moonrise, Hernandez hanging in my kitchen and it's really fun to see what the untouched negative looked like before all the dodging and burning. What's always amazing to me is that these prints were all done before the days of the computer, and every area that was altered had to be done by hand and with extreme precision. If you don't already own some of Adam's work, head over to the Ansel Adam's store and pick up a book or print.

Patrick Hall's picture

Patrick Hall is a founder of Fstoppers.com and a photographer based out of Charleston, South Carolina.

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6 Comments

Wow... I love this word when I am stunned.... and this is so great! Tks for sharing! :)

So interesting hearing the behind the scenes stories of these iconic images! Thanks!

Be sure to visit Marc's site. His videos guest have included: Vincent Laforet, Brian Smith, Ken Rockwell, Joey Lawrence, Matthew Jordan Smith, and Chase Jarvis.

http://www.silberstudios.tv/

A group of my friends and I went to see a traveling f.64 exhibit several weeks back and I was simply speechless. To see a nearly 3x6 foot image of Moonrise printed in '41 I believe --- simply Amazing. Lots of other breathtaking work displayed to by Ansel's f.64 peers. Commit yourself to visit his work someday. Then thank me later ;)

I had to watch a documentary on Adams in my beginning photography class. Everything about it stuck with me: his likability, his philosophy, his camera, and the work done to develop the pics.

It's been my privilege to shoot several videos with Ansel's son Michael Adams and his grandson Matthew who now runs the gallery. I grew up as a photographer with Ansel as my mentor, reading and re-reading his basic photo series http://www.anseladams.com/category_s/27.htm. Several years ago I wondered why we didn't have videos of Ansel talking about his technical points? I was fortunate enough to get to know his family and make some progress in that direction. We actually have many more to come.

Cheers,

Marc