Archetypes
Zone System B&W
Black-and-white landscape rendered the way Ansel Adams would have printed it — placed exposure, dramatic shadows, every tonal value precisely where it serves the image.
The tradition, briefly.
The American black-and-white tradition that made photography a fine art. Every brightness in the scene is mapped onto a 0-10 scale and placed deliberately, so the print is a built thing, not a snapshot of the world.
A photographer who shaped it.
Ansel Adams 1902–1984
Co-creator of the Zone System and the definitive American landscape photographer of the twentieth century.
The film stock.
Kodak Tri-X 400 1954–present
The legendary newspaper-and-magazine film of the twentieth century. Grainy, contrasty, and capable of being shoved around in development to fit almost any lighting.