Last Friday, Robert Scoble, Thomas Hawk, Rocky Barbanica and I along with several loyal photowalkers took a walk along the San Francisco piers and later to the cable car museum. As always it’s fun to get out and see what’s out there to shoot, particularly since we were challenged by the harsh noontime sun. Here’s a few of the shots I got:

Robert Scoble captured Mr Big Oil!

Finally! Mr Big Oil captured and locked up!

Looking up into the roof of one of the piers we explored

A bit of a self portrait

Chain and shadow

The big rollers that pull little cable cars, half way to the stars…these were hand held shots, resting on the railing.

Nice to know you can drag your shutter when you don’t have a tripod!

My interview with Michael Adams was intentionally directed towards what I knew were key points in Ansel’s books having read these in my teens and then recently re-read them with the digital age in mind. There is no doubt about it, Ansel was a generous teacher who left us his wealth of know-how. In my interview I wanted to highlight some of his key points (BTW, there are two excellent documentaries on Ansel that cover his life and history, my interview with Micheal was never intended to compete with them, rather I wanted to focus on key points of photography.)

1. The story of how Ansel got the shot of Half Dome in 1927 “that probably changed his life and his future.” This was when he realized the process of visualization which became the key to his mastery of photogaphy.
2. The effect of his musical background on his photography. “It taught discipline and practice.” BTW, the piano you hear is Ansel, this recording generously loaned to us by Micheal.
3. The basis of his Zone System.
4. To master the skills of photography you have to thoroughly know your equipment, lighting, your tools.
5. What it was like shooting with Ansel — sometimes hectic because of changing light conditions but it was usually fun, enjoying being in the environment he was in. You’ll see 3 photos of Michael and Ansel together, and one that includes his friend Cedric Wright. It was on a trip with Cedric and Michael that Ansel took, probably his most famous shot, the haunting Moonrise, Hernandez, NM.
6. Ansel said, “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” (Look for cutaways to his darkroom.)
7. Ansel generously moved his negatives to the Center for Creative Photography for others to be able to print.
8. Ansel’s work flow: He would go into the darkroom soon after shooting to make sure he had the negative he wanted. How easy we now have it!
9. Ansel was a tech guy, for example he was an early user of Polaroid.
10. He would have embraced digital read what he wrote in 1981.
11. You hear straight from Ansel exactly what he means by visualization: “The whole key lies very specifically in seeing it in the mind’s eye, which we call visualization.”
12. Use of the framing card. You can read about this here (Print out the card on cardstock, cut out the black rectangle and practice looking for shots. This is vital training for your eye–the equivalent of going to the driving range for a golfer.)

Hope this data helps. Stay tuned there’s a lot more to follow.

You’ve heard me talking about it, well here it is click here or on the image below to see our pilot episode in Yosemite. I had the amazing good fortune to interview Ansel Adams’ son Michael at Glacier point. You’ll also see rare unreleased footage of Ansel himself heading up to the same spot and talking about what he said was the key to a great shot.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think.

Here’s a trailer for our soon to be released show PhotoCycle, you will need QuickTime player to view it, for a free download click here then click on the logo below to play the trailer.

The lens is a 50mm Leica lens from my trusty Leica M2 that I used for many years, (like my hero Cartier-Bresson) however the shot of Half Dome was taken with my Nikon D2X. So it symbolizes many factors in my life as a photographer and bringing the analog world and the digital worlds of photography together.

In case you missed her show, here’s a shot I got of Annie talking about how she got teh nude cover of Demi Moore for Vanity Fair. She was talking about how different people act when she’s talking their portraits. As Annie told it, “Demi led the the shoot.”

She said that originally Vanity Fair wanted to hide the fact that Demi was pregnant, pretty impossible under the circumstances. Annie said that Demi finally dropped her dress and she got the shot.

Marc & Annie Polaroid (taken by Robert Scobel, not a real one I confess…)

Taken recently at Annie Leibovitz’ show in SF. She and I both attended the SF Art Institute and the bond is still there after all these years. We reminisced about the days in the darkroom, our hero Cartier-Bresson and our rivals at Brooks Institute.

Her Show at the San Francisco Legion of Honor ends on Sunday, if you’re in the bay are you really must make it.

I was at her pre-release where she showed us thorough her exhibit and Robert Scoble shot a Qik video.

What I find so amazing about her career is that she has managed to capture some of the most intriguing people in our culture. She said that as far as capturing the “real person” in each of her shots– she didn’t know if that were true, “I get what they allow me to see.” That may be the case, but there’s no doubt she has a way of drawing out the emotions and mood she is after.

One thing you can certainly see from her show, she is rarely without a camera, a lesson we can all learn.

Classroom Geometry, originally uploaded by marc silber.

I took this shot 44 years ago, it was published a few years ago in a photo-essay I did for Gentry Magazine, so I guess you could say it is now my first professional photo.

Henri Cartier-Bresson talked about how photography relies on geometry. I agree. I see in images that I admire a sense of geometry—the placement of lines and objects. Contrasting proper placement can be things out of place or unexpected as in this shot.

So many times we’re limited to holding the camera in the landscape or portrait position, but what happens when you change the horizon as I did above.

Your thoughts?

Marc showing the concept of "framing", originally uploaded by marc silber.

This is a shot of me teaching photography workshop at Kepler’s in Menlo Park using Ansel Adams’ framing card. It was cool that in one of our recent video shoots with Micheal Adams, he talked about how his dad used this card in his classes.

BTW, I’ve just completed some Photography workshops for Filoli and Hillsborough and Atherton clubs, these were well received by the students and I’m getting requests for some over the summer.

These would cover the basics of photography & digital cameras, composition, etc. They are suitable for teens on up.

We’ll use the surrounding area, Sunset Magazine, Palo Alto-Stanford, etc, to photograph.

The workshop would be a total of 4 sessions 1 ½ hours each, probably one in June, two in July, one in August.

Lots of personal attention and feedback.

Please let me know if you might be interested and we’ll work out specifics for dates and cost. Marc@silberstudios.com

You can look at www.silberstudios.com/learn for more data.

News about PhotoCycle. Our show is in the works and our first pilot should be up in about a month. Rocky and I were working on editing it yesterday, I have to tell you it’s really cool: We’re going to show you Ansel’s darkroom with footage we just shot, but the really cool part is we have unreleased footage of Ansel working in this same darkroom (thanks to Michael and Matt Adams who generously made this available to us.)

This embodies our vision of PhotoCycle: To take you close to the masters of photography, for inspiration and to get their know-how, connecting this directly with the digital world, which of course is built on the analog world of photography.

For example, Ansel made a point of mentioning the key to the photographic process is visualization, he brought this up over and over in his books the Basic Photo Series. But imagine hearing from him directly what he meant by the process of visualization? That’s where we’re taking you on PhotoCycle.

Another example is with Edward Weston (he and Ansel helped pave the way for photography to be considered a true art form—something we can now take for granted and enjoy the freedom of. Edward made the definitive statement about composition: “Composition is the strongest way of seeing.” Though we have no recording of him talking about this, I will ask his grandson Kim to elaborate on it.

We’ll also be taking you on classic PhotoWalks to accessible but photo rich locations, Thomas Hawk will be joining us as he and Robert Scoble did some of the original PhotoWalks which are still available. You can join us on these too, in person or on our show: watch, follow along and learn—or show us, as the case may be.

We’ll be bringing you weekly tips and tricks, how to get inside your equipment do those neat things.

We’ll also be covering the business side of photography, how successful photographers have made a go of it.

We’ll be tailoring this show to you and your interests, so leave your comments, send me your emails and come along when we go on a PhotoWalk.

I’m really passionate about this show and very happy to be working on this with Robert and Rocky and hope to hear from you and see your work along the way.

Ansel’s license plate? “Zone V” (Matthew Adams, his grandson now has them on his car, how they ended up there is another interesting story…)

Zone V is of course middle (18% ) gray that all of us middle-gray (excuse pun) photographers know so well. It’s the middle zone that your light meter goes after.

But could it be that Ansel also had a slightly more philosophical message behind the obvious?

Photography is a balance: You have to be well versed technically, but you need the eye to find the image. Too far on either side and you’ll see it in the image. A perfect technical rendition but no emotion or story in the image. Or a great image but weak technically. Both will fall flat. But how about a balance between the two? Zone V.

When I teach, I try to balance the student’s attention between how to look for the shot and how to get it.

Ansel remarked that photography is a language. We’re speaking to others with our images, your use of the language must be clear, but so must what you are “talking” about.

How is your balance? Are you in Zone V?

Here is a cool interactive post in the New York Times with backstories to some of Ansel’s  iconic images told by Andrea Stillman, one of his assistants. Click on each image to hear her story.

Here are five easy ways to improve your photography:

1. Learn to visualize your image: Get a clear image of what you want as the final picture and control the shot and image processing to get it.
2. Take more photos, take photos daily. The more photos you take (but not shotgun, please) the more you put yourself out there. Just as with tennis — or better surfing, the more waves you paddle for the more you will catch (with some wipe-outs along the way
3. Critique your work:Use these points s a guide and see how you feel you did in each: a. Technical quality?
   i. Focus?
   ii. Exposure: Light or dark?
   iii. Lighting?
   iv. Colors?
   b. Composition? Framing what should and shouldn’t be in the frame?
   c. Emotional appeal?
4. Look over other photographer’s work and do the same. Also try to visualize what they were seeing at the moment they took the shot.
5. Take photographs outside of the “box.” We all tend to stay within our set photos, make yourself get shots outside of that. Go out and shoot old cars, bicycles, people sleeping or nude–whatever you would normally not take shots of.

These are just a few ideas, there are many more points to improving your shots but try the above and let me know how this goes for you.

PS: I’m thinking of setting up a a critiquing venue on a photo-sharing site, would you find that useful?

Michael Adams showing us Ansel’s enlarger

For our next segment of PhotoCycle, we stopped by Ansel Adams’ home to get a tour from his son Michael. As Scoble put it “it’s like being in a cathedral” — we were surrounded by Ansel’s work on the one hand and on the other his actual workspace—his darkroom and workroom where he printed and finished his work.

For me this was a very personal experience, Ansel has been an inspiration and teacher for me most of my life. My mom read me his biography The Eloquent Light, later she introduced him to me when he came to my grade school for a show. I avidly read his Basic Photo Series in my teens and charged into my own darkroom to put my new found knowledge to use. So to be in his home that emanated his passion for making photographs was quite moving.

We toured through Ansel’s living room-gallery and Michel told us stories behind Moon over Hernandez and his shot of Half Dome in 1927, which he sites as his first visualized photograph—a signal moment in photography.

We went onto his darkroom and had a look at his 8×10 horizontal enlarger that runs on railroad tracks! This machine was engineered by him so that he could make enormous prints. It has a feature I’ve never seen before: He could control the lights on the enlarger to create more or less light projected from individual parts of the negative itself.

After Michael gave us an overview, I asked Frederick Johnson from Adobe to join us and discuss how the analog world of photography had made it into the digital realm, such as PhotoShop. This was pretty surreal: Representatives of both of these worlds discussing the meeting of the medium in our present day digital age.

My passion with this show is to put our viewers in touch with the masters of photography, to learn from them so that they can better their own craft. Proof of concept: My friend Helen, who is a neighbor of the Adams’ and I had invited to join us for the shoot told me later that she had a major realization while hearing the description of the enlarger: She saw for the first time the art of how the photograph was created by Ansel, taking his vision and projecting it into the print that he wanted. In this moment she saw clearly how photography is an art form not just a reproduction of the scene.

Her realization is exactly what occurred to Ansel when he first discovered that he didn’t have to follow the rules of pictorial or snapshot photography, but could visualize and show others his vision in the final print. Ansel with Edward Weston (whose home we’ll be visiting next) and others were responsible for getting photography recognized as an art form, something we tend to take for granted today.

What I found fascinating about her spark of realization was—this is precisely what I hoped my viewers come to realize…this is my passion with the show: to tell the story and to broaden awareness of the field. Results? Deeper understating and better resulting photographs.

Be sure to subscribe to my blog so you can hear about the launch of for our show PhotoCycle.

Frederick Johnson’s blog

Frederick’s Flickr

Scobleizer

A new Camera that you can ride?

Nope. It’s our show that will be launched soon on FastCompany.TV, so named because it covers the whole cycle of photography beginning with inspiration and visualization, tricks and tips, through to the final print and even how to sell your work.

We’ll be introducing you to the masters of photography and take you along on our PhotoWalks.

Our next stop? Ansel Adams’ house for a tour and we’ll end up in his amazing darkroom, where we’ll discuss how the analog world of photography made it to the digital.

Have a look at Scobel’s Qik video of our visit last week with Michael Adams to the Ansel Adams gallery.

Stay tuned folks, you’ll love this!

Half Dome is an amazing monolith to just look at and not even think, just look or talk quietly with friends, in this case with Robert Scoble, Michael Adams, Rocky Barbanica and Thomas Hawk.

Well folks, what can I say–I spent 24 hours walking through and around Yosemite with Ansel’s son Micheal. Rather surreal to hear the stories of shots I have known about and revered all my life.

Here’s a qik video of one of my interviews with him, as you can see this was being shot on high def which will be up soon. Sorry the sound a bit weak, it was shot by Robert Scoble on his cell phone, during my interview with Michael.

We were up at Glacier Point looking down on the valley and across to Half Dome. the road up here was closed, we were kindly escorted in by the Park Service and so had the place to ourselves!
Robert Scoble got this shot of Michael pointing out some of Ansel’s journeys to me.

Here’s Robert Scoble’s blog entry:

Kodak Moment: Following Ansel Adams footsteps

It’s weird to read the New York Times to find this article on Ansel Adams on the front page. What did we just do? We spent two days in Yosemite with Michael Adams, Ansel’s son, who spent the better part of two days showing us around.

I shot a TON of Qik/cell phone video with Michael. We also did a bunch of “pro” video with our expensive HD camcorders, those will be up soon as part of a new show for DSLR photographers that’ll be on FastCompany.tv. Titled “PhotoCycle.” We haven’t set a start date for that, yet, more on that later. A special thanks to Marc Silber (he’s the professional photographer who’ll host PhotoCycle) because he’s the one who did the work to arrange this trip.

Ansel Adams Gallery now has a blog, too. One reason I was there was to film Ansel Adams Gallery, which is one of America’s most beloved family businesses and has been operating in Yosemite Park for 102 years.

Thomas Hawk, my favorite photographer that I watch on Flickr, put up a single photo from the two days and it already has gotten 50 votes on Flickr as “favorite.” Getting a “favorite” on Flickr is really hard, and to get 50 for one photo of something as photographed as Half Dome is demonstrates Thomas’ skill and popularity as a photographer, it was a real treat to get to follow him as he made images in Yosemite.

One really big thrill for all of us? They opened the Glacier Point Road just for us. There wasn’t another soul in place for 13 miles of road. Totally amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience of Glacier Point. We also made our own history: we did the first cell phone live video from Glacier Point thanks to Qik. It’s amazing that we had a live audience around the world while filming these videos.

The New York Times had a separate article about Flickr. Here’s Thomas Hawk’s feedback about that (he was one of the photographers quoted in it).

So, why a Kodak moment? Well, Michael Adams told me that Ansel Adams did a lot of work for Kodak. He shot a few of the Colorama ads for Grand Central Station in New York. Did you know Kodak has a blog now? I like the Kodak blog a lot, it gives me some great ideas for photos.

Little known Scoble trivia: I used to help run a camera store, LZ Premiums (now long gone) in the 1980s and was responsible for buying all the Kodak film and darkroom supplies. I saw someone walking out of the Ansel Adams Gallery with a yellow box of Kodak printing paper and it took me back to the hours I spent in a darkroom and all the friends, photos, memories I made back then.

This was — by far — the most special two days I’ve had outside of getting married or watching my two sons being born. I told someone I would have traded my Davos trip (which was freaking awesome) for hanging out with Michael Adams for 24 hours. It was that good and I can’t wait to show you the videos and more of our photos. Thomas Hawk told me he’ll have his photos up soon, along with a writeup of the two days.

Now, go back and read the New York Times article, and listen to it come alive thanks to Qik videos done on my cell phone.

Michael Adams, Ansel Adams’ son, in front of the family business, the Ansel Adams’ Gallery.
The famous Tunnel View, where Ansel shot his famous Storm Clearing photo. In the video we meet a tourist who took a class from Ansel and he tells us about that experience. I talk with Thomas Hawk about this view, and we find some other things to shoot as well.
Video from a meadow shooting Yosemite Falls.
Half Dome from the Bridge. In a second video Michael Adams tells what a photo from this bridge meant to his mother.
You’ve seen the famous photo, Moon and Half Dome, here you see where to shoot it, and we talk about some of our experiences making new images there, but also hear Michael’s stories about the photo and what it meant to him (it was used on his wedding announcement).
Up at Glacier Point we had the whole place to ourselves, so I made a TON of video.
Glacier Point 1.
Glacier Point 2.
Glacier Point 3.
Glacier Point 4.
Glacier Point 5.
Glacier Point 6.

In the videos you’ll learn that Michael is an interesting innovator in his own right. He was a fighter pilot, then went to medical school and now teaches medicine while also keeping memories of his father’s work alive and well.

I don’t know how I’ll top this in my career. Hope you enjoy this as much as we did (and there’s a LOT more to come from this two-day experience).

I also put up a bunch of photos on my Flickr stream and I’m sure that Thomas Hawk will have a lot more of his own.

I’ve been very busy getting ready for the launch of our TV show PhotoCycle—so named by Rocky Barbanica our Producer, as it covers the full cycle of photography: We’ll begin by taking you to visit the masters of photography—which is why I’m off to Yosemite to shoot a video with Michael Adams (Ansel’s son) who’ll take us through the Ansel Adams Gallery and then to see many of the amazing images that his dad captured around Yosemite valley.

Michael just emailed me “I just came down to Fresno from Yosemite. It is beautiful with all of the waterfalls full, the oak trees about to bloom and the dogwood just coming out…” Should be a fascinating journey, hearing about those amazing images, like the story of Ansel on his way to Happy Hour at the Ahwahnee hotel, seeing the moon over half dome, pulled his Cadillac over, grabbed his camera and got the shot, just like you or I could have!
Stay tuned for this episode it should be available in about two weeks.

Sorry I have been out of the loop, been very busy preparing for our new series of PhotoWalking (but stay tuned for another title as we will be spanning a broAd range of topics.) My passion is to bring you great content that both inspires and educates and to take you into places you wouldn’t normally have access to.

1.    We’ll, be taking you to meet some of the true masters of photography directly, such as our walk with Annie Leibovitz through her show at the SF Legion of Honor, and with the family of masters such as our trip to Yosemite with Michael Adams (Ansel’s son) and a view of Edward Weston’s studio with his grandson Kim. I want to put you in touch with these legends of photography to get an insight into how they worked, stories behind their shots and what you can learn from them to improve your own work.

2.    We’ll be exploring the business side of being a photographer to get an inside view of making a business out of photography. Again we’ll be talking to some of the greats and finding out how they made it work.

3.    We’ll be going on the classic PhotoWalkings where we strike out to accessible and photo-rich locations to see shots, discuss how to get them and again learn from these experiences.

4.    Finally we’ll be passing along tips and “tricks” to better your craft. I want you to hear from those who have mastered digital photography such as the use of PhotoShop, printers and your DSLR.

Along the way we’ll be taking you in to meet the worlds top innovators in photography, so stay tuned folks…

I had the pleasure of walking through Annie’s show on Friday opening at the SF Legion of Honor. It covers an amazing span of her work which is impressive, intimate, courageously self reviewing, I could go on and on, you simply must see it.

She told the story of Demi Moore dropping her clothes and leading the shoot for this shot

We had fun talking about the old days at the SF Art Institute

Take a look at Robert Scoble’s blog on this show and see his Qik video (our high Def video will be up later.)

This question has been tossed about, but was answered by AA in 1981 (decades before digital really took hold)  in the intro to The Negative, the second of his Photo Basics books.

“I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them.”

I’m re-reading Ansels’ books from the viewpoint of digital (since when I first read them in the 60s.) It is the hallmark of professionals to “continually strive to comprehend and control” their medium, which in our case happens to be light itself.