ABSTRACT
Ansel Adams was responsible for creating the famous/infamous ‘Zone System’ in order to precisely control the tonal range of each of his masterpieces. If you look carefully at one of his beautiful landscape photographs you will notice that only the light source (or its refl ection - something termed a ‘specular highlight’) appears as paper white. All the rest of the bright highlights reveal tone or texture. Likewise, the shadows may appear very dark, but they are not devoid of detail. Ansel was careful only to render black holes as black. Any surface, even those in shadow, would render glorious amounts of subtle detail.
