visualization is a concept highly regarded in the photographic world and suggested by Ansel Adams and Minor White among others. but that concept is often misunderstood. just recently, i heard an interview with a photographer whose work i admire. in talking about visualization, he mentioned that he doesn’t go out on a photography trip or walk envisioning a certain image in his mind that he’d like to make.

but that’s not the visualization or pre-visualization, as some like to call it, that Ansel Adams and Minor White were talking about. Adams’ grandson tells the story of how Adams came up with the concept of visualization. he’d hiked up to a viewpoint of half dome with his wife, and as was the case at the time, had a limited amount of dry plates in which to expose. he took one image of half dome, but decided he wanted to try using a red filter with his last dry plate. he wanted the final print to be a higher contrast scene than what he was physically seeing, and he wanted a more moody, dark sky surrounding the huge slab of granite. once he returned home and developed his plates, he was thrilled to see that his second shot - the one with the red filter, was exactly as he had envisioned the image to look in his mind as he was making the photograph. the key point here: visualization as prescribed by Adams is envisioning the final print (or the post-processed image in the current world of digital photography) prior to snapping the shutter of the camera - not going out with a pre-conceived image in your head of the photo you want to take.

some might argue this other form of visualization - going out with a specific image in mind is the same thing, however there is a distinction between the two forms. going to a location with a certain image in mind, with lighting a certain way, with a specific composition in mind or certain weather conditions is one form of visualization. however, the form of visualization Adams refers to - envisioning the final, post processed or printed image in your head before snapping the shutter is the other. in this scenario, you’ve already found an image and scene that intrigues you - perhaps something you had no idea about prior to finding it. i’ve performed both forms of visualization described here, and can tell you that going out with a predetermined image is actually a detriment to me. i become so locked into getting the image i’ve sought, that i don’t look for anything else - missing a number of possible images on the way. i’ve been so frustrated by not getting the image i set out to make, that it put me into a mental state where my photography suffered. so for me, and i can only speak for me, but this form of visualization is a hindrance to getting the most interesting images. there is, in fact, a big difference between getting out of the car about to embark on a journey for a specific type of image, and standing behind the camera setup to photograph a scene envisioning what you want this scene to look like in the final version.

there’s a reason that Adams’ version of visualization is important, and it is largely because it speaks to artistic intent in photography. it speaks to the individual expression in the final image, as well as the ability to ensure the image captured maximizes that expression. now, some may argue that times have changed - the digital world allows us to have far more flexibility in our post-processing, artistic vision on our photographs in comparison to the almost handicapped darkroom-based world in which Ansel Adams existed. and you wouldn’t be wrong in making that argument. the world is our proverbial artistic oyster as we can completely remove and add things to our photographs at will. we can modify the colors as we wish. there is so much that we can do today that couldn’t be done. (or done nearly as easily as they can be today) but what if we miss something compositionally in the field? that’s the one thing you cannot change in post processing. this concept of thinking through the image prior to pressing the shutter button, of knowing exactly how we want it to be in its final version - this is a concept that can guarantee we get the exact picture we want to artistically express. as “easy” as it is to “fix” things on our computers in this day and age, so much of what is being done today does not have the mental “staying power” of the great artists of that time. why is that?