10 Ansel Adams Lessons I Had to Rethink

Ansel Adams is for sure one of the photographers whose influence on photographic culture is almost impossible to escape. His photos, his technical knowledge, his writings, and his way of thinking about the medium have shaped generations of photographers. And still he does.

When I came across a list called “10 Lessons from Ansel Adams That Are a Masterclass in Photography,” I found myself agreeing with some of it, questioning some of it, and completely disagreeing with other parts. Not because Adams was wrong. But because photography is not a universal formula. I strongly believe that in photography there is not just way to make photos and there is not just way to live the experience as photographers.

And of course what works brilliantly for a photographer working with landscapes, large format cameras, careful visualization and darkroom printing does not necessarily apply in our era, especially to someone working in the street, in documentary photography, or simply trying to respond to an unpredictable world.

That is the reasson why I decided to take each of those ten lessons and put another lesson beside it. And not to correct Ansel Adams. Just to remind myself that there is more than one way of seeing.

1. “Patience beats speed. The best shot is worth the wait.”

My lesson: Speed can be part of seeing.

Patience is certainly a photographic virtue. But so is speed. In street and documentary photography, the world doesn't necessarily wait for you. A gesture lasts for half a second. Someone walks through a patch of light. Two people suddenly align. A strange relationship between objects appears and disappears. Sometimes waiting produces the photograph, for example when we are looking for layers. But sometimes waiting kills it. Despite I consider myself a Bressonian photographer, I don't want to spend all my time anticipating the perfect moment. I want to be sufficiently present to recognize something while it is happening. Photography can be about patience. And sometimes it can also be about reaction.
Don't always wait for the photograph. Be ready when it happens.

2. “Fewer, better photos beat hundreds of average ones.”

My lesson: Don't be afraid of making photographs.

I understand the idea. Nobody needs thousands of mediocre photographs simply because digital photography makes them possible. Editing is important, especially when we start we need to learn how to be the harshest critic of our work. But I don't believe that making many photographs automatically makes someone less thoughtful. It happens to me even with film. Someone thinks that film making slower the process and I experienced several times that it can be quite the opposite, so it is not even the medium.

I belive that Photography is also a process of discovery. Sometimes you need to make photographs that don't work in order to understand what does. Sometimes you don't know which frame matters until much later. And sometimes the photograph you initially considered insignificant becomes the one that stays with you. The problem isn't quantity. The problem is photographing without looking. I would rather make one hundred photographs while genuinely observing than make ten photographs while trying to prove how disciplined I am.

Make as many photographs as you need. Just make sure you are actually looking.

3. “Master your light before you master your camera.”

My lesson: You don't need to master light. You need to learn to see it.

This is one of those lessons I mostly agree with, but I would change the verb. I don't want to master light. Sometimes I just need to accept the light. And I want to be able to recognize it. I don't control the sun. I don't build elaborate lighting setups. I don't decide where the shadows will fall. So I walk into the light that already exists. For me, understanding light means becoming sensitive to what is already there. And that is very different from controlling it. Also…I think irs important to master your camera (and lens) because through that you are able to understand more how light will enter in the frame.

Don't try to control every kind of light. Learn to see the light you have.

4. “Editing is part of the craft, not a shortcut around it.”

My lesson: Editing is a choice, not an obligation.

There is nothing wrong with editing photographs. In fact, editing has always been part of photography. Adams himself spent enormous amounts of time in the darkroom interpreting his negatives. But I don't believe every photograph needs to be transformed after it is made. Often photographers tend to rely too much in the editing process to the point to forget to make a good work before to press the shutter button of the camera. Or there are even those thinking to adjust in post production with the classic “Ansel Adams” approach because maybe learned in a photographic school but that way is not working with street and documentary photography. The right exposition is often the wrong choice for a certain kind of photography. I found myself often I want the photograph to be finished when I press the shutter. That is what I learned when I was a kid, making the photos with my film camera and then trsting in my photo lab making the second part of the job. That is one of the reasons I have moved toward working with JPEG. Exposure, color, contrast, Picture Style and the moment itself are already part of the photograph. I am not interested in creating an unfinished image and then completing it later. Or if I do mostly needs to align what I have seen at the moment, when I was there, no need to change completely the image with a software. I am interested in making more decisions before I take the picture. And I am not pretending you agree with me. Here we are talking about me, my approach, my vision.

Post processing is a creative option, not a moral requirement.

5. “A photo is never truly finished, only released.”

My lesson: Sometimes a photograph is finished when you press the shutter.

This is probably where my approach differs most clearly from the traditional idea of photographic craftsmanship. I don't necessarily believe that the photograph is only the beginning of a process.

Sometimes the photograph is the process. For me for sure, mostly, when I press the shutter button of my camera the process is made. I saw something. I made a decision. I pressed the shutter.

That's it. The photograph can exist without needing to be rescued, perfected, polished or reinvented. This doesn't mean that every photograph straight out of the camera is automatically good.

It means that I believe in the possibility of a finished photograph at the moment of exposure. There is something liberating about that. This is also because I found myself in the condition to release immediately the images I made, working also for breaking news. But it is more thatn this, it is a way top approach photography in general. If you ask me I can say that despite I am constrained to do not just as a photographer but also as a writer, to spend a lot of time in front of a computer. And if I can spend as little time as possible in front of a monitor, I do. I prefer to live. I prefer being outdoors.I prefer to photograph.

The shutter can be the end of the process, not the beginning of another one.

6. “Return to the same place until you truly see it.”

My lesson: Sometimes you need to return. Sometimes you need to move.

There is enormous value in returning to the same place. A place changes. Light changes. People change. I change. Indeed I stronly believe in the approach/process of “Street & Repeat”. All over these years I applied that a lot, for example with the project AMERICANA. And I have the sensation to make often the same photograph. The same photograph and at the same time it can be a different photograph because the place changes or I am different because different is my mindset at the moment to make the photo.

With that said, anyway I don't think returning is the only way to learn to see. Street photography has taught me the opposite lesson too.I walk. I move. Often I get lost. I change neighborhoods. discovering new places. That is exciting. I follow (and photograph) something I don't understand. The world is not a studio set waiting for us to completely understand it before we photograph it. The question mark can be a great inspiration for a photographer. And sure, sometimes seeing comes from familiarity but sometimes it comes from unfamiliarity. And sometimes the best thing I can do when I stop seeing is simply to leave.

Don't confuse knowing a place with being able to see it.

7. “Know your gear so well it disappears from your mind.”

My lesson: Know your camera well enough to stop thinking about photography.

This one I completely understand. And I agree. Technical knowledge matters. But I don't think the goal is to become obsessed with technical mastery. The goal is to reach a point where the camera stops becoming an obstacle between me and the world. I don't want to think about whether I am using the perfect lens, the perfect settings, the perfect camera or the perfect file format while something is happening in front of me. Because I don’t work with perfect cameras. I don’t even own expensive lenses. I just want to know my equipment well enough to make a decision almost instinctively. The camera is just an extension of my way of seeing. Not the subject of my attention. Otherwise I am just all those nerds with a camera, knowing everything about the tech, and nothing about how to make emotions and life are into a photo.

Learn the camera so you can forget about the camera.

8. “Visualize the final image before you press the shutter.”

My lesson: Don't always visualize the photograph. Be ready for it.

This is one of Adams' most important ideas, and it makes perfect sense within his approach. But, again here, I find it problematic when presented as a universal rule. How can I completely visualize a photograph that I have never seen before? It looks to me a speculation. Street photography, in particular, is full of accidents. A person appears from nowhere. A strange gesture happens. A reflection, is a good example, because it creates something you couldn't have predicted. If I am too committed to the photograph I imagined before pressing the shutter, I may become blind to the photograph that is actually happening. I don't always want to know what the photograph will be. I love that photography can surprise me. I love to find serendipity. I want to be open to discovering it.

Don't always visualize the photograph. Leave room for surprise.

9. “Your work can stand for something bigger than the shot.”

My lesson: A photograph doesn't always need to mean something bigger.

Hahahaha. I laugh hjere because that is exactly what I hate coming from many photographers. Photography has an almost irresistible tendency to become too serious. We want photographs to say something about society, humanity, politics, memory, history, identity, culture. Oh, yes, ometimes they do. But sometimes they don’t. And a photograph is simply a photograph. With no expectations. I don't think every image needs to carry a grand statement on its back. Or a story. I am sorry but I get bored with photographers always talking about a story. I don’t need a story to enjoy an image. Most of the photos from Stephen Shore, Luigi Ghirri or Guido guidi have no stories to present. And yet they are my references. They certainly are more so than certain pretentious photographers who talk about stories without even knowing what they’re talking about. Especially in documentary and street photography, meaning can accumulate over time. While just one photograph may seem insignificant. Put it that way: in street photography we really don’t need to make projects because it is sufficient the contant lifetime project that is going out on the street with a camera to make photos that simply happen in front of us.

Not every photograph needs a message. Sometimes its value is simply that it existed.

10. “Trends fade. A clear point of view doesn't.”

My lesson: A point of view is developed, not declared.

This is probably the lesson I agree with most. Photography is full of trends.And most of them are pure crap. Looking for the approval. Made by people with no ideas, in need to stay in the circle. Indeed most of them don’t last. They disappear in 5 years. Cameras become fashionable. Editing styles become fashionable. Certain colors become fashionable. Certain kinds of grain become fashionable. Suddenly everybody photographs the same way, talks the same way and uses the same vocabulary. I love the same photography I loved when I was a 10 years old kid.

A point of view is not something you announce in your Instagram bio.It is something that slowly becomes visible through your work. It comes from the photographs you make repeatedly. The things you are attracted to. Even the things you ignore. Or the things you refuse to photograph. And eventually, if you photograph long enough, your photographs begin to reveal who you are. Photography is a great truth detector: we can dicover if you have an important cultural background or simply not. In this sense, despite photography is a great liar it is also a truth rvelator about the author.

Don't try to look distinctive. Develop a way of seeing that is genuinely yours.

Adams Wasn't Wrong, guys.

That's really the point I would highlight with this post. I don't think we need to tear down Ansel Adams in order to disagree with some of his lessons. His approach produced extraordinary photography.

His ideas were coherent with the kind of photographer he was and the kind of photographs he wanted to make. Most of everything his photography acted coherently with him as a n individual, for example his great social and envinronmental preservation action. The problem begins when we take the philosophy of one photographer and turn it into the philosophy of photography. Photography doesn't have just one correct workflow. There isn't one correct relationship with light. There isn't one correct amount of photographs to make. There isn't one correct way to focus, expose, edit, print or even think.

A landscape photographer working with a large format camera in Yosemite can have completely different needs from a street photographer as me, walking through Mexico City.

Maybe the most important lesson isn't one of Adams' ten lessons at all. It is this: Find the photographic process that makes you see more clearly.

For some photographers, that might mean waiting. For others, moving quickly. For others both.

For some, spending hours in the darkroom. For others like me, making the photograph in camera.

For some, returning to the same place for decades. And for others, never staying in one place for very long.

The goal isn't to follow the rules of great photographers. The goal is to understand why they made those choices, and then decide whether those choices make sense for the photographs you want to make.

That, for me, is where photography becomes personal. That is the main goal because we are hyper-saturaed of images. And Photography is something more important than only the production of images. When i approach a new photographer’s work I need to see something talking about him, his point of view, his personality.

Let me know what you think.