Blog | Alan Ross Photography

Film vs Digital – More on the Topic

Oct 4, 2012Alan5 CommentsPhoto Philosophy

I got a request a few days ago about my thoughts re small/large format and digital vs film. It seems to be an active topic so I hope the following can shed some more “light” on the subject! ****** Dear Mr. Ross, … was wondering if you would be kind enough to answer a couple…

How Do Light Meters Work?

Sep 16, 2012Alan1 CommentTech, Zone System and Metering

How Do Light Meters Work? Most of us can understand that a reliable light meter, either in-camera or hand-held is pretty essential to getting good film or digital exposures – but just how they work might be a matter of some mystery or confusion! When light meters were first made, they were pointed from camera…

Ansel Adams’ Yosemite Special Edition Photographs

Jun 4, 2012Alan1 CommentAnsel AdamsAlan Ross, Ansel Adams, Ansel Adams Gallery, darkroom printing, silver-gelatin prints, Yosemite Special Edition Prints

Affordable Authentic Ansel Adams Prints One of Ansel Adams’ personal commitments was to share his energy and abilities in support of the things he believed in, most notably, photography and the environment. In the cause of both, Ansel and his wife, Virginia, selected six photographs of Yosemite and offered them for sale through her family…

More on Using Filters

May 6, 2012AlanPhoto Philosophy, Tech

A previous post discussed the basics of how and why colored filters can change the relationships of different subject colors in black-and-white photography. This writing will give some visual examples of the effects of filters in BW work. The example above shows a still-life scene containing a wide range of neutrals and colors, rendered in…

Filters – How to Choose and Use

Apr 6, 2012Alan2 CommentsLenses, Tech

Filters – How to Choose and Use Part 1 I think the thing I like most about working in black-and-white is the fact that it’s much more an expression of how I feel about a subject than a representation of “reality.” The world doesn’t exist in Black-and-White (my mother told me that…) so a…

Understanding Lenses – Depth of Field

Mar 16, 2012Alan1 CommentLenses, Tech

Where do you focus, and how does the aperture affect an image? In a certain way, the opening question should be the other way around! There is a law of physics that governs the relationship between shutter speed and aperture (f-stop). Shutter speeds are pretty easy to understand: 1/60 second is one half as much…

The Zone System and Digital – Let your Spot Meter do the Work

Mar 9, 2012Alan1 CommentZone System and Metering

As I discussed in a previous blog, effective application of the Zone System (ZS) really requires the use of a reliable hand-held spot meter. There are basically two kinds of spot meters, those with analog dials for calculating exposure and those with digital displays. While both can afford effective results, the ones with analog dials…

Can the Zone System Go Digital?

Feb 21, 2012Alan1 CommentTech, Zone System and MeteringAlan Ross, Ansel Adams, Black and White Photography, Digital Photography, Fred Archer, Photography, The Zone System, Zone System

In a word: YES! The Zone System (ZS) can be an integral and important part of any digital photographer’s workflow because it allows you to plan and predict an image’s tonal values rather than letting the camera make the decision. The computerized metering systems in modern cameras are really amazing, and a lot of the…

Ansel Adams, Leica, and Yosemite in April 2012

Feb 9, 2012AlanAnsel Adams, NewsAlan Ross, Ansel Adams, Leica, Leica S2, Photography, Photography Blog, Yosemite

News Flash: Experience the Leica S2 in Yosemite! Students attending my April Ansel Adams Gallery workshop, “Ansel Adams’ Yosemite: The Art of Seeing,” will have a rare opportunity to photograph with the Leica S2, a premier medium-format digital camera that retails for approximately $28,000 and was developed exclusively for digital photography. It’s based on a…

Special Print Offering

Jan 25, 2012AlanAnnouncementAlan Ross, Alaska, Ansel Adams, Badwater, Black White Photography, Death Valley, Glacier Bay, Photography, Photography Blog

While I’m not much into New Year’s resolutions, I’m giving myself a goal to get into the darkroom more this year, and I’ve been doing some digging around in my files of as-yet unprinted images. And there are quite a few! The digital age has allowed me to experiment with images of interest and I’m…