G'day Sam,

Well, he was actually a classical concert pianist - by training and profession! (However, that still supports the "... hands weaving and waving in the enlarger light ..." - but the 10" x 8" enlarger head he built himself does not.

This was a diffusion head (diffusion minimises the tonal distortion of the Peltier Effect and gives an enlarged image with a tonal range closer to that of a contact print) ... with 48 separately switched globes - so he could achieve very controlled dodging and burning at the illumination stage. (Which is not to say that he didn't nip in for the odd fine detail dodge or burn!) The whole rig was horizontally mounted, if for no other reason, so he could directly switch lights while watching the projected image.

The Polaroid work he did, in later years, really stretched the capabilities of that medium ... but the great work was on 10" x 8" film, brewed up in varieties of pyrogallol developers.

... And the last thing a photographer would call any of Ansel Adams's great photographs is a "snapshot"!

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton