the zone system vs. the Big Picture

[Jack Campin <jack@purr.demon.co.uk>]

Eric Larsen wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Apr 1996, Jack Campin wrote:
>        I haven't read Minor White's book [...]

I *have*, and I didn't write what Eric attributed to me.  Gary Toop did, and
went on to say:

> knowledge is more powerful than ignorance.  Why tell a neophyte to avoid
> material that is at least technically accurate and competent?

Because it's of secondary importance compared to the other things a relative
newcomer needs to know; both technical - the issues around shutter-speed/
aperture tradeoffs - and communicative - seeing inspiring examples of what
you can do with a camera.  Adams' own photographs cover a very restricted
expressive range, and _The Negative_ covers only a tiny fraction of the
practical issues in photography.  I'm not saying people should never read
that book or look at his pictures, but there are far more balanced books to
start with, and the proportion of photographic images worth seeing that were
made by his methods is an infinitesimal fraction of the whole in both number
and variety.

Charles E. Dunlap wrote:
: the zone system requires that we have a mental image of what we want to 
: see in the photograph and the system provides a sound method for obtaining
: that result.

And if the mental image of what I want to see is "content that epitomizes a
significant aspect of human life as it is here and now", how is the zone
system supposed to do that?  Most of that is to do with what you point the
camera at and when you push the button, neither of which the Zone System is
in any way relevant to.

A further problem with this: for many kinds of photography, you simply
cannot plan an image like this - you know that the situation you're in
is evolving in an interesting way, and you know when the moment arrives
to take the picture, but the precise composition and tonal structure of
that picture is not knowable in advance; you may only know what you've
got after you've done the processing.



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jack@purr.demon.co.uk  -  Jack Campin, 2 Haddington Place, Edinburgh EH7 4AE