Sir Elton John's favorite art form is modernist black & white photography

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

 

 

Edited January 11 by Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg

[Marianne]

Black and white photography is my absolute favorite and he collected some of the greats. Thanks for sharing this. 

[Allan Bell]

14 hours ago, Marianne said:

Black and white photography is my absolute favorite and he collected some of the greats. Thanks for sharing this. 

 

Back in the late 70's early 80's I was developing and printing my own black and white film and prints. Decent darkroom with enlarger and all ancillaries.

I did try colour but preferred B&W.

 

Have not really done any mono since digital came in but wonder about trying it again.

 

Is there any call for mono images from Alamy as I think of mono as wall art or maybe books.

 

Any one on the forums licence mono through Alamy?

 

Allan

 

Sorry to butt in Jeff.

 

ITMA

 

Edited January 12 by Allan Bell

[gvallee]

I have licensed 3 monos, all portraits and all PU/Presentation.

I only have 5 monos in my port, so I'm happy with 3 out of 5.

The other 2 are a landscape and a bird.

 

 

 

 

[Ed Rooney]

 

Long long ago. I had the privilege of observing W. Eugene Smith make a print. I knew him from playing at his jazz nights and my friend Harvey Zucker was taking a darkroom class with him. For the first 10 years of my photography career, I shot almost entirely B&W until I got involved with travel market. I'm sorry if I'm retelling this story. 🤔

[Michael Ventura]

1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

Long long ago. I had the privilege of observing W. Eugene Smith make a print. I knew him from playing at his jazz nights and my friend Harvey Zucker was taking a darkroom class with him. For the first 10 years of my photography career, I shot almost entirely B&W until I got involved with travel market. I'm sorry if I'm retelling this story. 🤔

 

Your stories never get old or repetitive.  

[Ed Rooney]

 

Thank you, Michael. 😉

[Marianne]

15 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

 

Your stories never get old or repetitive.  

 

+1

[Ed Rooney]

 

With B&W, I usually shot Tri-X but developed it in Acufine. The Kodak developer, D76, gave clumpy unpleasant grain. Acufine produced a tight even grain and allowed a normal ASA of 1,000. I loved that look. Digital B&W is pointless, I think. Elton John's collection looks great.

 

 

[Mr Standfast]

20 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

 

Your stories never get old or repetitive.  

+1 

[Ed Rooney]

 

Yakety yak yak yak -- That's me!

 

🤪

[Marianne]

On 13/01/2024 at 03:20, Ed Rooney said:

 

With B&W, I usually shot Tri-X but developed it in Acufine. The Kodak developer, D76, gave clumpy unpleasant grain. Acufine produced a tight even grain and allowed a normal ASA of 1,000. I loved that look. Digital B&W is pointless, I think. Elton John's collection looks great.

 

 

 

I process my digital B&W slowly and carefully using Nik Silver Efex and I have a printer in Kansas who uses Ilford ILFORD Black and White Silver Gelatin Photographic Paper and I gotta say, they are gorgeous. At least twice at ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) Fine Art Portfolio reviews (in person- pre-Covid), when I showed my digital black and white images printed on the Ilford Paper (and painstakingly processed by me beforehand) a couple of reviewers (both NYC Gallerists of a certain age), remarked, "wow, you're shooting film!" or words to that effect. You should try it. I'm sure there are labs near you given that Ilford is a UK company. In fact, here's one: https://harmanlab.com/collections/digital-silver-black-and-white-prints,

 

I appreciate your old-school leanings, and share them. I shot on film until shortly before I turned 50. I learned photography in a traditional darkroom in high school and college in the 1970's- then worked on a suburban newspaper in 1980-81 before law school. Tri-X for the newspapers, Pan-X or Ilford film for my artsy prints. In the late 1980s, while practicing law, I took 3 or 4 classes at ICP (International Center of Photography) so I made a lot of black and white prints and exhibited film prints through the 1990's. 

 

I've also used a special Ilford Black and White Paper on my own Canon Pixma pigment printer and the results are pretty great but it's not a traditional wet process like the lab. For color I generally choose digital C-Prints. I did color photography in college too (using Ektachrome slides). So, I get that love for the pre-digital feel. I was working for a few magazines and newspapers in the early 2000's running around to labs all over Westchester (different publishing groups) to drop off my film. They also took digital but I didn't trust the quality until I got my first D70 in 2006. 

 

Paper and processing make all the difference. I didn't have my own darkroom so I don't know what chemicals I used - in high school I believe they used Ilford. I always used Ilford paper for black and white (film) and often Ilford film, though I was also a big fan of the fine grain I got with Kodak Pan-X .

 

Anyway, you should really try using Silver Efex and get some prints from the Harmon Lab. You could be nicely surprised.