Quote Originally Posted by Acadia25
This interested me, and I remembered differently, so I looked it up. According to Ansel Adams in his "Examples, The Making of 40 Photographs" there was only one hurried, desperate 8x10 camera exposure taken of "Moonrise." He knew he had an "unusual photograph" (understatement!) so he tried to take a duplicate, but failed to get one before the scene vanished.

He did work at printing the photo in his beloved darkroom over the years so it would match his previsualisation etc. At the same time, he said that even if the image was poorly printed, it's "romantic/emotional moment in time" would have still been appreciated (again, understatement).

The most interesting, compelling thing about photography for me is capturing the moment and, as has been said, using the tools at hand to do so. I think that it is that "wait, compose, capture" idea that make photography so exciting. What Jim Brandenburg did in "Chased By The Light", taking one exposure a day (on print film - he couldn't preview his work) for 90 days as a project, really impresses and excites me as a photographer and observer. I know he uses depth of field and shutter speed etc. It's means more to me that he used his skill to do it at the time and under extraordinary circumstances.

I think that I understand where Kelly (and the others) is coming from. It is impossible to determine where the point that photographic manipulation becomes too much, but I do believe that it is important that the vital elements of a photo were there at the time and the photographer had a very clear idea of the image in their head. This does not necessarily mean that lots and lots of manipulation is wrong, or not photography. It just isn't to my taste.

And, yes '"lots and lots" is subject to debate too... ;)
I went to one of Ansel Adams last lectures (in London). I seem to remember him saying (about Moonrise..) that he was driving along, saw the image, stopped and set the camera up in a mad hurry, didn't have his exposure meter to hand so he used used the only value he recognised in the scene - the moon - which he set on Zone 7 I guess. Did one exposure - and the light went out. And that was the end of it.

Charles