Masters II: Light and nature

Learning goal

You will be able to get to know three masters who put light, tone and nature at the center, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Sebastião Salgado, through their ways of working and their thinking. You will see how Adams designed the gray steps of a mountain before pressing the shutter and turned them into an interpretation in the darkroom, how Weston turned everyday objects and nature into sharp forms with a large-format camera, and that both were part of a group that championed sharp photography not worked by hand. You will learn how Salgado approached people and nature with projects lasting years, the deep tones of his black-and-white prints, and the debate this beauty creates when it shows suffering. You will weigh this debate without taking sides, and question how different skin tones are carried in black-and-white printing and how the communities photographed are represented.

The question

In the large book the older member has opened stands a black-and-white mountain. The sky is almost black; in front of it a snow-covered peak shines, every crack and every shadow on the rocks can be made out separately. From the darkest black to the brightest white, the tones are lined up side by side like the steps of a staircase. Your friend from the club thinks of the mountain photos they took last summer: in them the sky is a pale gray, the mountain a flat mass, everything blended together.

Both photos show the same kind of mountain; the one in the book stands like a work of art, your friend's like a souvenir. Your friend asks whether the difference is in the camera, in the light, or somewhere else. How did Ansel Adams turn a mountain into art? How does a landscape go from an ordinary record to an interpretation?

Context

In the zone system lesson you saw that Ansel Adams, together with the photographer and teacher Fred Archer, developed a method that places the tones in a scene on numbered steps from black to white before shooting (Lesson 11.8). In the movements in photography lesson, too, we discussed the outlook of straight photography, which championed photography's own sharpness (Lesson 26.1). This lesson reads that method and that outlook through the masters who built and carried them on.

The masters of light and nature don't only record a landscape or an object; they rebuild it through tones and forms. The same mountain, the same pepper or the same forest takes on a completely different meaning depending on when the photographer waits for the light, how they place the tones and how they make the print. This lesson deals with the decisions behind this rebuilding and the debates around it.

Simple explanation

What did Adams and Weston champion?

A large-format camera is a camera that uses film in individual sheets, produces a large negative, and is usually framed on a tripod by looking at a ground glass at its back. The size of the negative gives extraordinary detail and smooth tonal transitions; but the camera is heavy and slow, and every frame demands careful preparation. Both Adams and Weston worked largely with cameras of this kind.

A contact print is a print made at the same size as the negative, by placing the negative, without enlarging it, directly on the printing paper and exposing it to light. A contact print made from a large negative carries the finest detail without any of the loss that enlarging brings. Edward Weston photographed everyday objects, a pepper, a seashell, a cabbage leaf, as well as sand dunes and bodies, with this method, as forms sharp and textured like sculpture.

Group f/64 is the group, founded in California in 1932 by photographers including Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, that championed sharp photography not worked by hand. The group's name comes from one of the smallest aperture openings on the large-format lenses of that period; this opening gives deep sharpness from front to back. The group opposed soft-focus photography that tried to resemble painting, and argued for showing photography as it is, sharp and clear.

Adams's mountains are the peak of this outlook. Adams planned the scene's tones before shooting with the zone system, waited for the right moment of light, and turned to methods such as fitting a red filter in front of the lens to darken the sky; because a red filter reduces the light of the blue sky, the sky goes dark in a black-and-white print, while white clouds and snowy peaks shine. In the darkroom, too, he worked on the print at length. He is often quoted as comparing the negative to a composer's score and the print to the performance of that score: different interpretations can be born from the same negative.

What did Salgado record?

Sebastião Salgado was a documentary photographer born in Brazil in 1944 who died in Paris in 2025. He had studied economics and worked for a while as an economist; in the 1970s he turned to photography. A long-term project is work in which a photographer works on a single subject or question over years, often spread across many countries, and finally presents it in books and exhibitions. With projects of this kind Salgado recorded workers around the world, people on the move and nature untouched by human hands in black-and-white photos. Together with his wife he founded a foundation in Brazil that plants trees on dry land in the region where his family's farm was.

Salgado's prints are known for their deep blacks, bright shafts of light and sculptural bodies. People working in a mine, families on a migration route or a glacier are shown with the same intense, dramatic light. This form made the photos leave a great impact; but it also became the source of a debate.

Why are beauty and suffering debated?

Aestheticization of suffering is the criticism that photos showing people's suffering, such as poverty, war or disaster, may distance viewers instead of moving them to act, by turning this suffering into a beautiful and striking image. Some critics directed this criticism at Salgado's photos: they argued that showing suffering so beautifully could lead viewers to turn it into a work of art admired from a distance, and could dull the viewer's response. Those who defended Salgado, on the other hand, said these photos gave people dignity and grandeur, showing them not only as victims but as strong and whole people. Both views carry a serious question about what photography is for, and this debate has no single right answer.

This question also concerns skin. Most of the people Salgado photographed live in different countries and different conditions from most of his viewers; this reopens the question of who shows whom that we discussed in the movements lesson. In a black-and-white print, deep blacks can make a face look strong and sculptural, but they can also swallow the detail in the shadows of dark skin. How a photographer makes the print also decides how the people they photographed will look, and whether they will be read as individuals or as figures in a dramatic scene.

Visual evidence

You put the mountain in the large book next to your friend's mountain photo. In the book's frame the sky is pitch black, the clouds bright, the snowy peak in the lightest tone, and there is detail even in the shadows of the rocks; the tones really are lined up from black to white like a staircase. In your friend's frame the sky is gray, the peak and the sky close to the same tone, the shadows a single dark mass. The difference isn't in the camera: it is in waiting for the light, in the filter that darkens the sky and in planning the tones in advance.

On the next page stands a pepper; its curves sharp and shining like a sculpture or the muscles of a body. It shows how Weston turned an ordinary vegetable into a form. Further on, a book by Salgado lies open: hundreds of workers covered in mud on the slope of a mine, deep shadows and light striking from above.

Your friend stays with Salgado's frame for a long time; they say the photo is very striking but they don't know these people's names. In a close face the dark skin is strong and sculptural, but the shadows around the eyes have almost sunk into black. The question between beauty and suffering stays open there, in the middle of the page.

Common mistakes

Summary

Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, with large-format cameras and contact or carefully worked prints, carried on the outlook of Group f/64, founded in 1932, which championed sharp photography not worked by hand; Adams turned mountains into works by planning a landscape's tones before shooting and with filters and darkroom interpretation, and Weston showed everyday objects as sculptural forms. Sebastião Salgado recorded workers, migration and nature with long-term projects in deeply toned black-and-white prints, and whether this beauty aestheticizes suffering was debated; how different skin tones are carried in the print and how the communities photographed are represented are part of this debate.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will try the methods of the masters of light and nature on your own subject.

1. Collect three photos by each of the three masters that you come across in a book or in a museum's online collection, and record their credits.
2. Photograph a landscape or a building from the same spot at two separate times when the light is different, and compare how the tones change.
3. Photograph an everyday object, a vegetable or a shell, with a single light source, in a way that shows it as a form.
4. For one of Salgado's photos, write a paragraph each on the aestheticization criticism and the view that defends it; also note how the skin of the people in the photo looks in the print.

Check yourself

• Can you list Adams's decisions that turn a landscape into a work?
• Can you explain what Group f/64 championed and that this was a preference?
• Can you present both sides of the aestheticization of suffering debate fairly?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What is one of the methods Adams used to darken the sky in his black-and-white landscapes?

• A) Opening the aperture all the way
• B) Using a high ISO
• C) Fitting a red filter in front of the lens
• D) Shooting the photo in color

2. Where does the name Group f/64 come from?

• A) From one of the smallest aperture openings on large-format lenses
• B) From the date the group was founded
• C) From the number of the group's members
• D) From a film brand

3. What is the main advantage a contact print gives when made from a large negative?

• A) Getting a larger print
• B) Colors coming alive
• C) The paper becoming glossy
• D) Keeping the finest detail without the loss that comes from enlarging

4. What does the aestheticization of suffering criticism question in Salgado's photos?

• A) How sharp the photos are
• B) Whether showing suffering beautifully distances viewers instead of moving them to act
• C) Which camera the photos were shot with
• D) Whether the photos are in color

Answers

1. C — A red filter reduces the light of the blue sky; in a black-and-white print the sky goes dark, and clouds and snow shine.
2. A — The name is said to come from the small opening on large-format lenses of that period that gives deep sharpness.
3. D — Because the negative isn't enlarged, detail and tonal transitions are carried over without loss.
4. B — The criticism asks whether beauty turns suffering into a work admired from a distance.

Summary card

• Adams: tonal plan, waiting for the light, filter, darkroom interpretation.
• Weston: everyday objects as sculptural forms; contact print.
• Group f/64: sharp photography not worked by hand was a preference.
• Salgado: long-term projects, deep black and white.
• Weigh the beauty and suffering debate fairly; question skin and representation.

Bridge to the next lesson

The older member closed the mountain book and left a thin, old magazine on the table. On its cover was a portrait taken during the economic depression of the 1930s: a worn woman, her hand at her chin, gazing into the distance; beside her two children with their faces buried in her. The older member said they had read writings describing how this single photo changed the way the conditions of migrant workers were talked about in a country. Your friend wondered whether a single frame could really be that powerful. How can a single photograph affect a society? The next lesson tells about the masters who photographed people and society.