More Great B&W in NY Times

DO YOU LOVE B&W PHOTOGRAPHY? THEN VISIT WWW.BWPHOTOPRO.COM, THE ONLINE B&W PHOTO MAGAZINE.

The New York Times has been a great place for people who love B&W photography lately. Todd Heisler's One in 8 Million series features his amazing B&W work (as noted in a previous post), and Richard B. Woodward's piece on Edward Weston's Ca. Coastal home base was very cool. Check these features out - we also have links to them at www.bwphotopro.com.

Amazing B&W in NY Times

DO YOU LOVE GREAT B&W PHOTOGRAPHY? THEN GO TO WWW.BWPHOTOPRO.COM, THE ONLINE B&W PHOTO MAGAZINE

The New York Times has an amazing B&W photo feature by Pulitzer-prize winner Todd Heisler:

http://nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/index.html

Make Silver-Gelatin prints... while you still can!

DO YOU LOVE GREAT B&W PHOTOGRAPHY? Then go to www.bwphotopro.com, the online B&W Photo magazine

I’m known as anti-digital. This is simply not true, but the misunderstanding is probably my fault.

I think digital is great, except for one or two things. My main beef with digital is: It is killing traditional film-based processes. This is to be expected, but if you love film and silver-gelatin printing, you need to try and slow down the obliteration of these wonderful materials for making hand-made photographs. Do you want it to be as hard to obtain film and paper as it now is to get materials for older alternative process (such as gum bichromate, et al)?

How do you do slow down the demise of film and paper? Simple: Buy film, buy silver-gelatin printing paper, buy chemicals. Does your local camera store have a small, forlorn darkroom department? Buy stuff and ask them to expand their traditional offerings. That’s a key, grass-roots way to slow the demise of these wonderful materials.

I’ve become aware that plenty of younger photographers, even ones who love B&W, have little or no experience with traditional B&W printing. OK, again, this is to be expected. However, it is wrong. These materials are still, thank goodness, widely available. If you’ve never made a traditional B&W print, do so! Rent or borrow a darkroom. Or get some trays and chems and print an inkjet digital contact negative.

A well-made print on the lustrous surface of silver-gelatin paper is magic. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then there’s even more reason for you to get this experience.) Will making such prints change your life as a photographer?

No way to know until you try it.

-Eric Rudolph

Ron Asheton, R.I.P.

www.bwphotopro.com, Where B&W Photography Lives

(Photograph of Ron Asheton and Iggy Pop, Copyright 2009 Eric Rudolph, All Rights Reserved, No Reproduction Permitted Whatsoever.)

Guitar legend Ron Asheton died recently; after about 30 years of a fairly low-profile career, the man who played those amazingly brutal and beautiful guitar parts on Fun House finally began to reap the rewards of his primitive genius. He played 150 shows, worldwide, with the reformed Stooges. I took this photo in 1973 at the now-shuttered Ford Theater in Detroit. Asheton had, by then, been usurped to the bass chair by new Stooge James Williamson. 

Donald Westlake has died

The great crime-fiction writer Donald E. Westlake died, on his way to dinner on New Year's Eve 2008. May he rest in peace.

If you've never read Westlake, you are in for a treat. 

He is revered among writers worldwide. (Admired primarily by crime writers, he is also a hero to many outside the genre.) Westlake's series of novels about hapless, hangdog & slowly aging NYC thief John Dortmunder are delightful gems of comic drollery. His hard-boiled series about Parker (under pen name Richard Stark), a strangely likable cold-blooded thief and killer (killing only to protect his business interests) are marvels of straightforward action and perfectly chilling storytelling economy.

Absolutely anything by Westlake is worth reading. I'd long avoided his big book about the theft of an entire train full of coffee, owned by the ruthless Idi Amin. It just didn't sound like fun. The book, Kahawa, is terrific.

One hopes that the Dortmunder and Parker series will go on (there is at least one more Dortmunder book, Get Real, to be published in Spring 2009). If there can still be James Bond books written to this day, long after Ian Fleming's death, then hopefully these two series can continue. But can anyone write like Westlake? I nominate Westlake's friend, Lawrence Block. One lives in hope.