, best known for his black-and-white
photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park
.
With Fred Archer
, Adams developed the Zone System
as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs and the work of those to whom he taught the system.
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.
For me the future of the image is going to be in electronic form ... You will see perfectly beautiful images on an electronic screen. And I'd say that would be very handsome. They would be almost as close as the best reproductions.
A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.
No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied — it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.