Zone Eleven
Zone Eleven is a reference to Ansel Adams’ Zone System, a method to control exposure of the negative in order to obtain a full range of tonality in the photographic print from the deepest black of Zone 0 to the brightest highlight in Zone 10. Zone Eleven is a metaphor coined by artist Mike Mandel in his challenge to create a book of Adams’ photographs outside of the bounds of his personal work. Many of these photographs were found in the archives of his commercial and editorial assignments, and from his experimentation with the new Polaroid material of the time. For this book, Mandel has unearthed images that are unexpected for Adams, and created a new context of facing page relationships, and sequence. Zone Eleven is the product of Mike Mandel’s research of over 50,000 Adams images located within four different archives.
