Looking back…. and forward


I?ve been thinking about how photography has changed since I first started out. In ?the old days?, I can remember making 50 prints in the darkroom to arrive at one good print. The image at left shows the instructions I made on one of my prints to guide me when I was printing in the darkroom. Early ?Photoshop!? These days I rarely make prints from my images at all. Unless the are printed for my fine art work, they are licensed electronically for stock photography.

This summer, nearly 20 years after I first became inspired by the work of Ansel Adams, my family finally visited Yosemite National Park in California. It was a very brief visit due to our tight schedule, but I was definitely blown away by its beauty. Driving through the valley, images by Ansel Adams kept popping up in my head and I was again amazed by his ability to capture the essence of this beloved place. I felt like I experienced and enjoyed Yosemite through his eyes.

As I photographed and made some video clips with my digital camera in Yosemite Valley, I couldn’t help wondering how Ansel Adams would?? photograph this place again with all the technology available nowadays. I have no doubt that Ansel Adams would have dove into new technologies to become a pioneer of the digital revolution. After all, he was the inventor of Zone System, such a technical, control-freak process. He would have loved using Photoshop when he was printing one of his masterpieces. Then I realized that the creative process has not changed a bit in all these years. When you have something in your head, it’s only a matter of how to get it out on the paper or screen. A darkroom or computer, filter or white balance, enlarger or Photoshop… I guess it doesn’t matter what you use.

What I love about photography that it allows us to see how other people see the world. I sure would love to see how Ansel Adams would photograph Yosemite again today.

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Keiji Iwai was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. He began taking photographs at 13 and knew immediately that this would be a life-long passion. He first came to the United States as a high school exchange student in Montana. He later returned to the U.S. to obtain a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree at Northern Arizona University. Keiji has received numerous international awards, and his work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the US. He currently resides in Flagstaff.

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