The Ansel Adams Project

Light becomes its most surreal when a photograph is viewed in black and white. It is as though whatever it falls upon becomes wrapped within a veil of luminosity that is at once unique and familiar, yet it carries within it a vibrancy that transcends the distraction color imparts on an image.

Keith Bridgman Photography

Ansel Adams, probably the best known American Photographer of landscapes, captured the color of the American west almost exclusively in black and white. His influence travels far beyond his mastery of photographic technique and impacted the age of conservation awareness like no other person. His images stirred the imagination into action and transformed a nation who at the time of his greatest works was struggling to climb out of a great depression. His genius was second to none, his eye for detail defined modern photography, his visual influence changed a nations understanding of who it was.

I have long enjoyed black and white photography ranging all the way back to my youthful earliest days of using a very old Kodak No. 1 Brownie camera my grandparents once owned, and developing those negatives and small prints inside a closet darkroom. It was magical to watch the image transform within the chemical trays. They were nothing more than simple snap shots of my day, things like our pet dog, or the car in the driveway, or a pool of rainwater reflecting light across its surface. The foundation of my photography was laid during those days and in spite of the modern technology available today, those simple images serve to remind me of my photographic roots.

Keith Bridgman Photography 

I first learned about Ansel Adams when I was a college student, although I had seen several of his images previous to that time. His story fascinated me even then at how he transformed from taking snapshots using the same kind of Kodak No.1 Brownie camera I had also used, into one of, if not the foremost authority on landscape photography. I would sit in the library and peruse though a book containing some of his images and was mesmerized by their clarity and stark beauty never once believing or even thinking that one day I would attempt to capture images in his style.

The Ansel Adams project is simply my attempt to rekindle some creative energy by going back to the basics of photography. I could never imply that I would ever match the power and impact of his images, but to shoot in his style forces one to backtrack creatively and to see the world in a different perspective by looking at the world based on the contrast and light created by shades of gray. 

Shades of gray, it sounds so simple, yet in reality capturing the world through the eyes of black and white is more difficult than it seems, for you not only must recognize the intrinsic photographic value of a landscape, you must also look beyond the visible clutter color imparts on a scene and see it as a series of contrasts and shades. Then, for this project at least, I must visualize not only the potential, but the technique Ansel himself might have used to compose his images.

Keith Bridgman Photography

For thirty days, I will add to my collection of black and white images and explore photographically the world close to home shooting nothing except landscapes and other points of interest using the Ansel Adams style. It is perhaps is one of the most unique and challenging projects I've ever attempted, yet one where my excitement level of the potential that may develop is as high as the Sierra Mountains where Ansel created some of his most enduring images.