Of Tools and Art

Techniques

September 9, 2019 ·

Dan Wells

Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico by Ansel Adams – one of the trickiest images to print in existence – the best of silver gelatin printing, in the hands of a master, is barely good enough.

As any art form matures, tools become first good enough, then much better than good enough, and we can come to first develop the techniques to use those tools to their fullest capability, and then, once the artist knows her or his tools and their idiosyncrasies really well, to concentrate on the production of real art using those tools. For almost all purposes, digital photography has reached that point where our tools are not only sufficient, but excellent, and the tools for a second, only somewhat related art form – filmmaking – are also found in our cameras.

The most mature of the photographic arts is probably black and white image-making and wet darkroom printing. The transition from “thinking mostly about the tools” to “what can we do with those tools” started around the time the Zone Syst...

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Dan Wells

See all articles by Dan Wells

Dan Wells, "Shuttterbug" on the trail, is a landscape photographer, long-distance hiker and student in the Master of Divinity program at Harvard Divinity School. He lives in Cambridge, MA when not in wild places photographing and contemplating our connection to the natural world. Dan's images try to capture the spirit he finds in places where, in the worlds of the Wilderness Act of 1964, "Man himself is but a visitor". He has hiked 230 miles of Vermont's Long Trail and 450 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail with his cameras, as well as photographing in numerous National Parks, Seashores and Forests over the years - often in the offseason when few people think to be there. In the summer of 2020, Dan plans to hike a stretch of hundreds of miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, focusing on his own and others' spiritual connection to these special places, and making images that document these connections. Over years of personal work and teaching photography, Dan has used a variety of equipment (presently Nikon Z7 and Fujifilm APS-C). He is looking for the perfect combination of light weight, ruggedness and superb image quality.

Of Tools and Art

Dan Wells

Dan Wells

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