What I think Ansel Adams Would Say...

[JFG]

What I (JFG) Think Ansel Adams would say about AI

I think Ansel would look at AI the same way he looked at the Zone System: a tool that expands what’s possible, but never replaces the person who decides what the image means. He’d remind us that the negative was only the score, and the print was the performance, and today, the RAW file is the score, and the AI‑assisted edit is just another way to perform it.  He’d probably say something like:  “The machine can help you see, but it cannot feel for you."  I think Ansel would look at AI the same way he looked at the Zone System: a tool that expands what’s possible, but never replaces the person who decides what the image means. He’d remind us that the negative was only the score, and the print was the performance, and today, the RAW file is the score, and the AI‑assisted edit is just another way to perform it.  He’d probably say something like:  “The machine can help you see, but it cannot feel for you.”  And that hits me. Because AI isn’t the enemy of photography, laziness is. If you feed it junk, you get junk. If you feed it intention, discipline, and a clear sense of what you want the world to look like, it becomes another brush in the kit.  I think he’d be fascinated by the idea that we can now dodge and burn at the level of atoms, that we can sculpt light after the fact in ways he could only dream of in the darkroom. But he’d also warn that the danger isn’t over‑processing, it’s under‑seeing. The camera still demands presence. The landscape still demands reverence. The craft still demands that moment where you inhale, exhale, and commit.  AI doesn’t change that.  It just raises the ceiling on what’s possible once you’ve done the real work, the field work, the seeing work, the soul work.  If anything, Ansel would challenge us harder:  “If the tools are better, your excuses are worse.”  And honestly, that’s how I feel about it.  AI isn’t replacing photographers. It’s exposing who was never really photographing in the first place.  Those are my thoughts of what I think Ansel Adams would say about AI.  

What are yours ?  🤔 

[Ramsden]

Hi Joe 

Really enjoyed your post. I'm about a fifth of the way through Ansel's autobiography where he's discussing Henri Cartier-Bresson's work with his friend Edwin Land. We are introduced to the concept of anticipation in capturing moving subjects. You have to press the shutter at the "decisive moment". So its not just standing in the right place, its anticipating the right moment.

I quote "Anticipation is one of the most perplexing capabilities of the mind: projection into future time"

Another quote: "The exhilaration, when anticipation, visualisation, mind, equipment, and the subject are all behaving, is fantastic"

While AI can do many helpful things, it can't replace us, with a brain,  in this process.

Ramsden 

[SignifDigits]

I think only Ansel Adams would have the remotest idea what he would say.  He was unpredictable in many ways.  He was an artist, after all.  And I would argue that it's not really important - I might care more what Henri Cartier-Bresson or Weston or .... would say.  Adams was great and amazing but he wasn't god.  And I'm not him, nor is anyone else, nor should anyone else try to be.  We don't actually see 100% of his photos because some of them are not all that great.  Would I like to develop his level of skill, awareness, vision and photographic mental acuity?  YES!!!  (but fuhgeddaboudit - for me anyways)

But I'll take the bait and comment.

There is an element missing from most of these conversations.  Ansel Adams also TOLD us what he DID and DID NOT support.  At least he did when he was 30 and wrote the 1/64 manifesto, though it is possible that he may have softened a bit later in life after photography had be accepted at art, which was not true when he was 30.  He was opposed to the "Pictorialist"  (and I'll say "pictorialism" for ease of speech).  What was a Pictorialist?  From the manifesto) "...indicates a devotion to principles of art which are directly related to painting and the graphic arts."

Why does nobody put any energy into exploring that?  And he tells us in his autobiography to look at William Mortensen as an example.  I think one look at Mortensen's work will tell you all that you need to know that Adams (again, at 30) would want "Straight Photography" in a separate category from "Graphic Arts" and/or what you might call "Synthetic Arts" where AI is also used.  

I know that he used every trick to manipulate "Moonrise", and that that he praised one of his assistants for permanently altering a negative so that the blocking out of a post didn't have to be done on every print.  

I'm GUESSING he would support AI as a tool for what I think you call "Human Photography", but what he called in writing "Realism"  or "Pure Photography" and elsewhere "Straight Photography".  I like that latter one best.  "Straight Photography" did then and can now encompass a wide range of tools to produce a photograph that is grounded in reality.

His words from the manifesto  "...striving to define photography as an art form by simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods. The Group will show no work at any time that does not conform to its standards of pure photography. Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form."

From that definition, AI to achieve the end of "Pure photography" seems likely, but derivatives that involve graphic art, probably not.  But nobody knows if he would support, say, layers using masking to switch an in-focus waterfall from one photo to replace the out-of focus one in the identical photo, or say, adding a second wave splash.  Maybe, as it was, after all, still two photos.

But as he aged, he changed.  He mentions "the 1/64 days", so who knows how much he changed?  He adopted and loved the Land process used by Polaroid, so he was a bit quirky, no?

So AI for "straight photography" as a sharpening or noise-reduction tool?  I'd guess yes.  So AI for swirling your photo into a piece of graphic art?  I'd guess he would say that as graphic art that's fine, just don't call it a photograph and exhibit it as photography, but as graphic art, or maybe a new art category called graphic photography.

Manifesto at https://photographyhistory.blogspot.com/2012/04/group-f64-manifesto-1932.html

[JFG]

The problem with your argument, SignifDigits,  is that you’re freezing Ansel Adams at age 30 and treating the Group f/64 manifesto as if it were a lifelong, unchanging doctrine. Adams himself repeatedly said those were “the 1/64 days,” a moment in time when he was fighting pictorialism, not laying down eternal commandments. His views evolved dramatically over the next five decades, and he often contradicted or expanded on his early positions.

What Adams consistently embraced throughout his life was any tool that helped him express the truth of a scene more clearly. He wasn’t a purist; he was a maximalist.  He championed better lenses, better emulsions, better enlargers, better chemistry, and later in life he enthusiastically adopted Polaroid Land film, calling it “a marvelous invention.” He worked with scientists on early digital scanning and printing. He used extreme dodging, burning, bleaching, intensification, reduction, and even approved permanent negative alteration by his assistant. If a tool improved clarity, he used it.

The manifesto’s definition of “pure photography” is about avoiding aesthetics derived from painting or graphic arts  not about rejecting new technology.  AI used for sharpening, noise reduction, tonal reconstruction, lens correction, or detail recovery is not “derivative of painting.” It’s simply a modern extension of the optical and chemical tools Adams already relied on. AI used to create synthetic fantasy scenes is obviously graphic art, but AI used to better reveal what the camera saw aligns perfectly with Adams’ lifelong mission.  

Mortensen is not a valid comparison to modern photographic AI. Mortensen’s work was staged, theatrical, and intentionally painterly. He was trying to escape reality. Adams was trying to clarify it. AI can do either, depending on how it’s used, which is exactly why the distinction should be based on intent, not the existence of the tool. The real question isn’t “Would Adams use AI?” It’s “Would Adams use any tool that helped him express the truth of the scene?” And based on his actual history, the answer is yes. Always. Without hesitation.  

Adams didn’t worship purity. He worshipped clarity. And any tool that helped him reveal the world more clearly was welcomed, whether it came in a bottle, a lens, a negative, or a microchip.

[johnrmoyer]

My experience with AI has not always been positive.

I have little knowledge of Ansel Adams, but like Adams, my uncle used large format Hasselblad film cameras in 1960.

In 1983 I wrote my first program in the LISP programming language which was at the time considered the language to use for AI. For 16 years I maintained code for the Machine Intelligent Gust Front Algorithm which was originally written in in LISP but was later converted to C++ and it worked because there was a way to check the answers it gave.

For the last several months I have been experimenting with Gemma, Gemini, Claude, and Qwen AI. I run a small version of Gemma-4 offline on my Debian Linux machine so that I do not need to compete with the rest of the world for resources. The computer code written by an AI is incomplete, incorrect, and contains hallucinations.

Gemini recently works well for transcribing and translating ancient handwriting.

I also tried getting Gemma-4 to analyze some historical writings from the first century CE and from the fifth century CE and put the results on my web server.

It seems to me that AI is accepted for imaging because the hallucinations are sometime pleasing to look at. I do not see those hallucinations as photography. But for those who like to look at them, I have no objections. They are often attractive and convincing.

[SignifDigits]

@JFG   You need to re-read my post perhaps.  I included most of the details of your argument about the changes in Adams, my position is your position, so if you have an argument it seems it is against yourself, not me.

"From that definition, AI to achieve the end of "Pure photography" seems likely, but derivatives that involve graphic art, probably not."

I believe that Mortensen is an excellent comparison to graphic art today, just that he didn't have the digital tools.   Many people are taking the exact same approaches to their digital photography - turning them into modern art pieces.  That is why I would argue that Adams would likely NOT support lumping all of AI and manipulation of digital images into a single bucket.

Maybe you have a smaller view of AI than I do.  AI is not just sharpening, denoising, etc.  AI is unlimited in the ability to create images that are not photographs.

So while I agree Adams would very likely use AI tools to achieve his mental image within what he later called "straight photography" I would say that unless he decided to switch from photography to another art form as Henri Cartier-Bresson did, he would not embrace moving away from what he called "straight photography" all of his life.

I have met one of his students and I hope to get a chance to meet him again in a few months, and I hope he's still alive - as you might expect he's getting on in years.  If I do I'll ask his opinion on the subject.  

[SignifDigits]

@johnrmoyer.  I've been using AI tools to write.  I use a very well-known commercial (def NOT free) package that I won't name here.  It's is a wonderful way to get ideas on paper.  Sometimes it even writes well, but not most of the time.  Sometimes it even (despite being plugged into several large language models) gets facts all wrong. 

I ordered an Amazon book - author was Collins JK. Smith.  I see 2 and 5 star rated books, so perhaps there are some real books, but the one I got covered facts in history.  The facts were totally wrong and it was an obvious AI piece of trash.  Amazon didn't even want the book back when I asked to return it.  They just gave me a refund.  Amazon apparently doesn't care if there are 100% AI-generated trash books.  Of course there are some notable authors that have sprung from Amazon sales, so I guess maybe it's worth having that mixture so that a few good authors can thrive there - above my pay grade.

AI can do some things very well and way better than humans.  As of yet it cannot really be human - at least not just yet.  Give it time and it may surpass humans in more and more significant ways.

[SignifDigits]

On another AI note, I just bought a photo sorting product called Excire Foto that has AI search built into it.  I gave it 57,000 photos to catalog overnight.  VERY impressive and will make my photo cataloging a lot easier, and I got a permanent license and don't have to pay a monthly payment to keep my investment in cataloging alive as is necessary with LightRoom Classic.  I found Adobe Bridge for free, and it looks like a great free option, but the AI search engine in Excire Foto is very cool.  They offer free 14-day trials to check it out.

I never used the cataloging in DPP4, just editing and my own cataloging system.  Of course, that means I have a gazillion duplicates.