The beauty of black & white photography

I have always loved film and black and white photography. Digital is wonderful, it's much less expensive, but it just isn't the same. Yes you can do things much faster, produce more with greater ease. But you can't replace the darkroom, the smell of developer, the grain of film and every little part of the process.

A few years back I was surfing around the internet and I stumbled across this photographer. For the life of me I can't remember his name. I just remember that he was self taught, and worked with black & white film. His photos were beautiful. He had a wonderful use of high contrast, and while his photographs we not "technically" perfect, they portrayed emotion and beauty. To me that is what photography should be about, emotion and personality. The technical aspects while important should not be more important than the idea, the feeling, or the message of the photograph.

Here is my small tribute to his passion, as well as mine. His photos made me fall in love with black & white all over again and remember how much I love high contrast.
I do mostly color photography but once a year I find myself going back to black and white, playing with contrast. Finding the beauty of what photography can be in simple terms. Trying to create that magic that film gives, that something special and different from digital. 

I will always morn the fact that I have no idea how to find his page or that blog post again. I would love more than anything to share his work with you, in hopes of inspiring others the way he inspired me.