Digital BW, The Print

on 2/8/02 12:57 AM, SKID Photography wrote:

> Todd Flashner wrote:
> 
>> 
>>>>> And to add to that, the zone system was invented by Ansel (and Edward
>>>> Weston?)...
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I know Minor White was one of the zone pioneers too, and perhaps the best
>>>> photographer of the group (IMHO).
>>>> 
>>>> Todd
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Sorry Todd....
>>> Yes great photographer and yes used the Zone system to the Nth degree, but
>> of
>>> a
>>> different era and age than Ansel and Edward.  I do not believe he was part
>> of
>>> it's invention, too young. ;-)
>> 
>> 
>> <http://www-tech.mit.edu/V105/N57/nudewh.57a.html>
>> 
>> Excerpted from the link above (emphasis mine):
>> 
>> Dreams with a memory- Minor White remembered
>> 
>> Minor White was one of the most influential, inscrutable, and
>> interesting photographers of all.
>> 
>> *With Ansel Adams he developed the Zone System*, an engineering methodology
>> which (in the primitive days of guesswork photography) allowed a
>> photographer precise control over the appearance of his image.
>> 
>> Todd
> 
> Todd,
> I fear that the above is a bit of revisionism.  While I agree that White
> probably helped perfect the Zone System, the below from Ansel's autobiography,
> off a website on the 'simplified Zone System'.....
> ******************
> The history of the zone system, or was Ansel Adams the sole inventor? Here's
> what Adams says in his Autobiography. The setting is the Art Center School,
> Los
> Angeles, 1940. "With the
> cooperation of Fred Archer, instructor in photographic portraiture, I set out
> to
> plan a way by which the students would learn the 'scales and chords' to
> achieve
> technical command of the medium. It took several weeks in refinement before I
> could teach it to the students. I called my codification of practical
> sensitometry the Zone System."
> *****************
> 
> I still believe Ansel 'invented' the Zone System, I guess I was wrong about
> Weston, but I thought I remember something in the history about Weston and
> Adams
> perfecting it...ah well..
> 
> Harvey Ferdschneider


Harvey,

So what are you saying? You could believe that Adams invented the Zone
System with Edward Weston, and you can believe that he did it with Fred
Archer, but you can't believe he did it with Minor White who was his
assistant at the time? I don't get it.

I'll stick with my memory of history, and the sources that back *it* up. ;-)

Todd