[Leica] Daved and confused

[leica at web-options.com (Bob W)]

> Has happenstance replaced visualization? Is this even something worth
> discussing?  WWAS? 

Just because Ansel Adams recommended visualization doesn't mean it was a
worthwhile or useful thing for people to do. Plenty of photographers have
got by over the years without bothering about it. It presupposes that the
photographer gives a stuff about going into the darkroom and wasting half
his life up to his elbows in vinegar, and is capable of producing a print of
that kind of quality. I don't believe darkroom work was ever popular with
photographers. 

In my opinion the job of the printer was to bring out the tonality that was
on the negative. Gassman's prints for HCB and others seem to do this, and
present the subject matter straightforwardly.

However, this kind of depends on your personal opinion of what your
photography (or any particular photograph) is about. If you see the exposure
as the starting point of a creative process then visualisation may well be
important and useful to you. If, like me, you generally don't see it as a
creative process but as representational, then visualisation is unlikely to
be important. 

To me the key thing that differentiates photography from other 'arts' (I
hesitate to use the word because it's so loaded), is that there is a direct
link from the recorded image to the subject matter in the real world, and
that link has not been mediated by the photographer's mind. It is a
mechanical process. Compare it with painting. The subject in front of the
painter goes through the painter's mind and he uses his skill to translate
what was in his mind into the painting - everything on the canvas is
mediated by the photographer. So any process following exposure should be as
automatic as possible, with the intention of retaining the unmediated
character of the photograph. Everything else is basically painting.

Bob