Story by Karen Parr-Moody
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Local shutterbug Cliff Whittaker has been shooting photos since 1961, but when Kodak went out of business two years ago, it threw him for a loop.
“With my digital photography, I could not find a predictable way to measure the tone values in the print to get the contrast the way I wanted it,” Whittaker says. “I thought I was doing pretty well until the point that Kodak went out of business and stopped making their paper.”
What, exactly, he was doing well at was shooting his landscapes as Ansel Adams once did, using a technique called the Zone System. Created by Adams and Fred Archer, the Zone System is a method for creating optimal film exposure and development, using the basic rule of “expose for the shadows; develop for the highlights.”
Throughout his sojourn in photography, Whittaker spent several years shooting on film with a 4×5 Linhof view camera. Then he moved to a digital camera while still using Kodak paper as his printing medium. But when Kodak went out of business, Whittaker thought he might be out of luck with his Zone System style photos, as well.
“I had to find a way to do it or quit,” he says. 
It took 18 months, but Whittaker figured out how to get his Ansel Adams shots by using a digital camera, specific computer software and 305 gram cotton rag watercolor paper printed with archival pigments. These photos will be on view from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 7 at the Downtown Artists Co-op, 96 Franklin Street during First Thursday Art Walk, the monthly self-guided art tour.
The show is entitled “No Shortcuts” and it includes the water color paintings of Dorothy Thomason. Like Whittaker, Thomason favors scenes of nature as her subjects. And also like Whittaker, Thomason is a longtime artist who has recently acquired new skills; she used color and strong highlights to create dramatic portraits for “No Shortcuts.”
Whittaker is well-known for his photographic glimpses into nature, but this show also includes different subjects, such as what he calls a “Vermeer-like” nude bathed in natural light.
Whittaker is so excited about his new work that it is being exhibited without glass in the frames so that the quality of the images will be more apparent. And even though it took Whittaker so long to figure out his process, he will tell other photographers about his discoveries. But they should bring pen and paper. Whittaker keeps all of his instructions written down because the process is so laborious.
“I have to follow it step by step,” he says. “Because if I leave out any step along the line, I have to start over from scratch.”
The water color paintings of Dorothy Thomason will also be included in the “No Shortcuts” show at the Downtown Artists Co-op.
Karen Parr-Moody began a career as a New York journalist, working as a fashion reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, a beauty editor for Young Miss and a beauty and fashion writer for both In Style and People magazines. Regionally, she has been a writer at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper and currently writes about arts and culture for Nashville Arts magazine each month.