The Ansel Adams Project - Renewed for 2023

 Ansel Adams is one of the most influential photographers of all time. His work certainly has had a powerful influence on my photography. A few ago I initiated a project where I was going to concentrate on capturing black and white photographs in the Ansel Adams style. No way could I ever duplicate what he created or accomplished, but the journey that project pointed me to became one of the most enjoyable and revealing projects I've ever done.

Ever since then shooting with the intent to create a black and white image has been a mainstay for me. I love black and white. I love its power, its texture, its creative design potential, and I've learned a great deal along the way.

This spring 2023 I jump started that project and made a two part blog video while engaged in the process. Please enjoy the two attached videos where I explore capturing landscapes in the Ansel Adams style.

The Ansel Adams Project - Part 2 - Kentucky Skies

The Ansel Adams Project - Part 1 - Exploring Long Creek

The Early Days: Kodak Brownie Hawkeye and a Homemade Oatmeal Box Enlarger

 The biggest influence on the history of my photographic journey has been a limited budget. Seems I've always had to pinch and scrimp, scrounge and do without to make do with what I had. Somehow or another I managed to capture a few pictures along the way and learned a great deal about how to stretch resources well beyond what the amount should accommodate.  I also learned a great deal about photography as well.

Homemade Oatmeal Box Enlarger Diagram

I've written several times about the first camera I ever used which was a very old Kodak Nbr1 my grandparents kept in a bottom drawer. That old thing as beat up as it was, actually made surprisingly sharp and well exposed images. Later on in life my parents upgraded to a more modern version known as the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye. They had the deluxe model with an attachable flash unit. It had some nice features with look down see through viewfinder, and a long exposure switch and a classic Art-Deco styling. It was a nice little camera for the day. When I was about 13 maybe 14 years old my good friend Rocky somehow or another developed an interest in photography and started developing his own film and prints. His mom even purchased for him a starter darkroom set that included a basic enlarger plus all the necessary processing trays, a film canister along with the chemicals and photo paper. To both of us we felt like we were really uptown and he showed me how it all worked. We had a great time as I used that old Hawkeye camera to photograph our adventures.

It wasn't too long before I wanted my own darkroom...but...as I mentioned before, the luxury of owning my own enlarger just was not in my parents budget and certainly not in mine. Somehow or another they did manage to purchase for me the basic setup including trays, chemicals - developer, stop, fixer, paper, and a film developing canister. All I could manage to do were contact prints, but it was still fun. We had a unused closet just barely big enough for me to sit inside with a small shelf just wide enough to hold the trays and few other things. I used a single red Christmas tree light for the safety light.

It did not take long before I really wanted an enlarger, but they were just too expensive. A basic one back then cost about $49.00...pretty cheap by today's standards, but costly none-the-less for a budget minded family. That is when I had my first real MacGyver moment...photographically speaking; I could make my own enlarger. Why not? There really wasn't much to them. A light source, something to spread the light out evenly, something to hold the negative, and means to focus the image. Pretty simple really.

I raided my mom's kitchen for three oatmeal boxes. She only had two, so I persuaded her to buy another one, a smaller box really and she did, storing the contents in a Tupperware container and letting me have the boxes.

The two full size boxes would become the main body with the smaller box perfectly fitting inside the larger one acting as the lens holder and a slider style focus control. I made a negative holder cut out of two pieces of a cereal box that would slide between the two main body containers.

Now all I needed was a source of light, a condenser, and a lens. The light source was simple. I just used a light socket from a broken lamp and I think a 40 watt light bulb. The condenser was another problem. Even back then I understood how hot the boxes would become and that I needed the light to be diffused enough to create an evenly spread light to avoid a hot bright spot, and I also needed something to insulate the negative from the tremendous heat developed by the light bulb. I remembered out in the garage was a oversized light bulb that no longer worked. 

The bulb part of the light was much larger than a regular bulb, almost exactly the same diameter as the oatmeal box. It fit perfectly inside once I cut a hole in the top to allow the long piece to extend out. I carefully chipped out the business end of the bulb removing the contacts and the internal filaments leaving just the frosted bulb and neck with its metal twist on fitting. I cover the external parts with black paper to avoid contaminating light. I filled the large bulb with water which acted like a huge lense and spread the light out in a near perfect pattern. It also insulated the negative from the hot 40 watt bulb.

The lens was next. It just so happened I had an old BB gun rifle scope that I no longer used. The objective lens, or front lens, was a pretty good coated multi element lens which I could easily remove by unscrewing the retainer ring. It was slightly larger than a nickel...I'd guess maybe f/5.6. That lens was simply wedged into a small hole cut in the center of the bottom of the smaller oatmeal box.

I positioned the enlarger horizontally using some small pieces of wood to hold it in place...it was just easier to work with that way...and created a small easel to hold the contact paper on the adjacent wall. The first test worked beautifully...I inserted a negative. Switched on the light...and by sliding the lens holder back and forth focused the negative on the easel backing. It was beautiful!...and it cost me virtually nothing. I could easily make up to 5x7 enlargements and even tried 8x10's but my little closet darkroom just was not large enough to allow for that much required spacing.

Over the years my photographic skills and equipment have improved considerably, but those early days established a foundation from which I could build. Oddly enough, budget is still an issue and even though I would like to upgrade my equipment, I've learned to make do with what I have...and it all started back in that little closet darkroom and a homemade oatmeal box enlarger.

The 'What If...' of Nature Photography

 The stiff spring day breeze brought with it a chilly sting that found multiple ways of penetrating the thin hoodie I was wearing. It was almost warm, but not quite there...yet, but the afternoon light offered some wonderful possibilities to capture a photograph that might become something special. Thick cumulus clouds drifting on the winds, sailed along at a good clip contrasting nicely with the brilliance of the blue Kentucky sky. I thought, 'Yeah...this looks good...let's see what I can do with it.'

A couple days before I had discovered this rustic country scene where a weathered wooden fence bisected an old two track road. A few hundred yards away, that old farm road curved into a wooded patch that crowned a shallow knoll and layers of wildflowers skipped and danced in the wind across the open field and nestled against the gray fence. The light was not so great on that first day...not terrible, but I was there at the wrong time and the clouds were high and wispy creating more of a pale haze than any significant contrast. I thought to myself..."What if...I could be here later in the day and ...what if...these wispy clouds were replaced by boiling thicker cumulus clouds...just maybe this one marginal looking location might turn out to be a real opportunity." The photo I captured that first day wasn't a terrible photo. It possesses certain qualities all its own, but I knew this location had more to offer. So I returned.

I spent a good hour or so snapping images at a furious pace...too furious really. I should have slowed down and been more patient waiting for the right combination of light and shadow to develop. Nothing seemed to be working like I hoped, then I thought.."What if...I back up to the road and step more to my left to include more of the fence and the layer of wildflowers that grew in front of it...what if....Let's see what happens..."  The rest is history for that single shot, (the image at the top) captured as a beam of light floated across the distant tree lined knoll...became possibly one of my favorite...if not best...images of all time.

As part of the Ansel Adams Project, I've been seeking out local possibilities to capture landscapes in the Ansel Adams style. Not to duplicate what he created...I could never accomplish that, but to jump start my "Photo Seeing" ability, to look beyond the ordinary and visualize a scene as it would appear in black and white. In doing so, I've rediscovered what thinking through a photograph really means, and what asking myself the thought provoking question...What if?...can accomplish.

The what if question redirects your eye and your mind toward looking at a natural scene from a different perspective. Asking yourself "What if..." encourages you to look at a photographic problem through the lens of a new solution...or a least a different solution. Nature photography often demands we do so. Simply snapping images at a furious rate in hopes of capturing a single image that works can be a process in futility. Sometimes it works. Most of the time, we end up with a whole lot of average pictures that absorbs a lot of storage space.

I remember another time a few years ago when the What if question resulted in a very nice photograph. I was overlooking a field from the high corner of that field waiting for the sun to set. As it drifted toward its final moment I snapped off a few photos I thought were okay, but they were simply...okay. I thought "...what if I move over a few dozen yards..." I did and not much changed in the way of quality of the photos. I began to work my way back toward my Jeep thinking the shoot was pretty much over. On the way I passed by a single tree. The What if thought again flashed into my mind..."What if...I step a few yards past that tree and line it up with the setting sun..." As I did so, the sky exploded in depth and color and I positioned the tree to appear as though it were a part of the sunset sky. Later in post processing I again ask the What if question..."What if I make this image a mirror of itself. The results astounded me. It is perhaps one of my top two or three photos of all time and I called it..."Burning Tree."

Asking "What if..." when approaching a photo shoot, can often jump start and rekindle creative juices. It places your thought processes into a state of mind where you begin to see more than what is there. As Ansel Adams once said, you don't take a photograph...you make a photograph. That concept is one many beginner or novice photographers fail to understand. It is the essence of creative photography and asking the What if question will focus your thoughts more keenly within the realm of capturing what you feel rather than what you see.