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 ?  🤔 

[JFG]

@SignifDigits 

We do agree about Adams, but the distinction I’m making is simple: Adams used every tool available to clarify a real scene, while Mortensen used every tool available to depart from reality. That’s the core difference.

Adams was a photographer before anything else. Every manipulation he used, chemical, optical, or darkroom was aimed at revealing the scene more accurately: cleaner detail, truer tones, and a faithful representation of what was actually in front of the lens. AI used for sharpening, noise reduction, tonal recovery, or detail reconstruction fits directly into that same tradition of improving clarity rather than creating something unreal. 

Mortensen wasn’t doing that. His work was intentionally synthetic, theatrical, and constructed (as represented by Mortensen pictures you posted). He used photography as a starting point for pictorialism, engineered imagery meant to imitate or evoke non‑photographic art forms. Modern synthetic AI is a continuation of his lane, not Adams’.

So yes, Mortensen is relevant to the history of photo‑based graphic art. But he represents the pictorialist branch, not the photographic one. Adams would embrace AI as a tool for clarity, not for synthetic creation. That’s the distinction I’m making.

Adams = photographer using tools for clarity.

Mortensen = pictorialist using tools for synthetic creation.

😎

[SignifDigits]

@JFG   Again, we are wholly in agreement, 100%. Sorry that I am unable to make that clear.

[JFG]

@SignifDigits, 

"I wouldn't be surprised if, when (if it isn't already) a course if offered in photo-based abstract graphic art, Mortensen isn't considered the father of the art, or certainly a pioneer" ...

I get where you’re coming from. Mortensen was doing heavily manipulated, graphic, almost painterly photographic (pictorial-graphic) work long before the medium had a name for it. His approach to combination printing, negative alteration, and treating the photograph as raw material rather than a final truth absolutely pushed photography toward what we now recognize as abstract graphic expression.

It’s also true that Mortensen was not universally loved. In fact, Ansel Adams and the f/64 group openly despised his style, and for decades he was dismissed as “anti‑photographic.” Only recently has his work been re‑evaluated as innovative rather than heretical. So your statement is also a bit of a prediction: if academia ever formalizes photo‑based abstract graphic art as its own discipline, Mortensen’s reputation could shift dramatically.

Whether he ends up being labeled the “father” of that art form is hard to say, but he certainly fits the profile of a pioneer. At the very least, his work expanded the boundaries of what pictorial-graphic could be, even if his contemporaries weren’t ready for it.