The Online Photographer

Baker's Dozen: Black-and-White

We asked readers to submit examples of their B&W photography, and got a lot of responses. Here are a few examples. Thanks to everyone who participated—very sorry we could not include everyone!

Tech details and the photographer's website, if the submission included either, follow the main part of the post.

Because I'm on record as not liking infrared for my own work, I always want to be sure to give equal shrift to good infrared work by others. This fine landscape by Bryan Hansel of the far-northern U.S. town of Grand Marais, Minnesota, doesn't hammer you over the head with heavyhanded IR tones, and it also manages to be something that's increasingly rare these day—a landscape photo that doesn't look like ten thousand landscape photos you've seen before. The nice play of the actual and implied lines (it might not have worked without the line of the clouds and that angled band of dark sky), plus the symbolism of the brave little tree growing where it doesn't look like it can thrive all combine to make this a landscape that was worth a second and third look for me.

It used to be a truism that large format was excellent for describing objects exactly, and that an exact description of "the thing itself" (Edward Weston's famous phrase) had a nobility, and in some cases almost an otherworldliness, all its own. Ned Bagno made this simple but eloquent description of "Joe's Flower" using a flatbed scanner, which he then converted to black-and-white.

A great example of how straight photographs can work as art is this surreal portrait of his daughter Naomi by Richard Alan Fox of New City, New York. The face set against the negative space provided by Naomi's falling hair seems to be simultaneously a frontal and profile view, almost mimicking the manner of a Cubist portrait. The left arm with its wonderful contorted hand gesture seems almost disembodied, yet it's framed perfectly with the door jamb—note how the line of the right side of the neck also seems to continue right into the doorjamb above it. Naomi seems to be falling forward out of the frame. The languorous, theatrical facial expression and spotlighting complete the enigmatic but startling effect. A wonderful picture, one in a million, I think.

Photo by George A. Housley, Jr.

Photo by Glen Paling

Okay, I have to admit that "Mexican pelicans" as a motif for this Baker's Dozen is something I did not see coming, but you never know what's going to come over the transom. George A. Housley, Jr., has, he says, "a particular interest in images of birds flying," and took his picture of a Brown Pelican years ago in the Mazatlan area of Mexico. Glen Paling was vacationing in Puerto Vallarta over the holidays when he heard of TOP's call for work. His picture shows the rocky coast—with pelican—shot from a high-speed panga while traveling from Yelapa to Boca de Tomatlan. "Yelapa is a cool little fishing village without road access. There are no cars—all roads are cart-sized not car-sized."

Steve Buettner took this "damn interesting interaction of reflection and interior" (and I agree with him, it is) at one of the many abandoned structures found in South Park, Colorado. Why make Photoshop concoctions when the real world is so interesting?

What would a post on black-and-white photography be without at least one "street-style" photograph? It's always tough to make a really successful picture of people from behind their backs, because so many photographers are simply too shy or reticent to take pictures of people they're facing (our friend the late Michael Reichmann showed a bit of that tendency in his people pictures). But when it works, it works. Mark Gregg of Dexter, Michigan, pulled it off here.

"The Chelsea Community Fair is held each year in August and for a few years I worked on this project," Mark writes. "I can't remember the event, but most likely these kids were watching the Demolition Derby, a collision contest where only the strong survive. Favorite cars by participants were old rear wheel drive Detroit models, big Buick or Chevy station wagons out of the 1970s that could take a licking and keep on ticking. Title for this photo is 'Bleacher Boys.'"

The original in this case is a silver print from a film negative, and it's nice to have one of those in this post, too.

Mike Stone is a London, UK based professional photographer "largely working on long term documentaries with a smattering of corporate work." This wry portrait was shot in the winter of 2015 when he spent some time with a Traveler community in County Cavan in the Irish Republic. You can read the full story of the picture on Mike's blog.

I received several pictures which fell under the heading of "nature closeups," and a number of them were more ravishingly beautiful than this. But I spent a lot of time with the large body of submissions over the past few weeks, and what I often find when I do that is that the more immediately appealing pictures that present themselves to my attention right away gradually recede after repeated viewing, and, sometimes, pictures that didn't grab me on first viewing do the opposite and come forward. Some pictures just get stuck in your head.

Like Richard Alan Fox's picture of Naomi, this odd but fascinating composition by Ed Wolpov, age 71, of Bethesda, Maryland, taken at the Kenilworth Aquatic Garden in Washington, D.C., seems to work in the way certain modernist paintings do. I don't think an analysis of it would do us much good, but look at it for a while, and maybe revisit it a few times—for me its shapes, complexities and arrangement began to have the same sort of distinct charm I feel from the work of Matisse, or from one of my favorites, Joan Miró of Barcelona. Ed says he photographed in film with small, medium, and large formats, but that, when he finally got his first digital camera, "after almost 50 years of darkroom processing, I finally saw the light." He works in a few different styles, namely landscape, architecture, and travel, but says he "enjoys pushing the envelope with a bit of abstract and conceptual work," mostly in black and white.

I loved the submissions sent by Lois Elling of San Leandro, California, and almost used two of them for this post (although that might have drawn some ire, given that there were so many applications for so few slots). She has a fine eye for composition. This has it all for a zoo shot—classical composition, great light, and a wonderful background. "A family excursion to the San Francisco Zoo was highlighted by a close-up visit with the giraffes to feed them. What beautiful animals they are! I was taken with the pose of this adult and young one inside the building. The light is from a large window."

I used to point out more often than I do now that we're not really looking at photographs online, just little representations of them. (Anyone who has purchased pictures from our print sales knows what I mean). This picture is really too small to see properly here, but I decided not to hold that against it. (You can double-click to embiggen, but it's still too small.) Alex Buisse of Chamonix, France, is a hardworking adventure photographer who, if his "Best of 2017" portfolio is any indication at all, is in his prime as a photographer. He took this dramatic picture "dangling from a rope on a frozen waterfall at night." He added, "it makes me a bit sad for them to be so small." I'd love to see this one 20 inches wide, and his other submission, of a hang glider dwarfed by craggy mountains, 30 inches wide.

Hans Muus of the Netherlands: "This picture is a dyptich, and the result of a small miracle: on a Sunday in April this year, just before dinnertime, I told my girlfriend I missed some essential ingredient for that night’s meal and would try to buy it in the supermarket near my house. Once outside, there was a crow in a nearby acacia tree making a lot of noise. I looked up and saw the bird, with the waxing moon right behind it. After a moment’s hesitation I went back in, said to my S.O. that though chances were slim the bird would wait for me, I really had to give it a try. I grabbed my X-Pro2, put on the telezoom (50–230mm) and hurried out again. The crow had waited for me. I set the camera and the lens and took one shot, and one second later it flew up. Immediately I took the second shot. Then I went back in to drop off the camera, and got out again to buy the groceries I needed.

"We all are familiar with the experience of seeing something without having a camera with us, and returning later to try to make the shot, but returning succesfully for a bird—it still makes me smile. The dyptich format followed naturally, as did the (very short) text, in English: 'hold!/never/a/falling/moon.'"

(As a certified lunatic as well as a great fan of crows, all I can say is that I love this.)

 And finally, one more for good measure:

I have to admit that the appeal of this one is a little...specialized, I guess you'd say. In my out-of-the-way area of Upstate New York, by far the best resource for photographers is the George Eastman Museum, a full-scale international museum based in the vast former mansion of the founder of Kodak in Rochester. The original house is part of the Museum, and the heart of the house is the music room, where George used to host tea parties and where he took his breakfast every morning, serenaded by an organist from the local music school he founded, playing what was then the largest organ in the world in a private residence. But the music room is dominated by a giant stuffed elephant head...which, of course, everyone tries to photograph. And therein lies a problem, as our last featured photographer, Mark Rouleau, explains:

"Here's my submission for the B&W Baker's Dozen call for work. I can't say it's a particularly remarkable piece, except that, for me at least, it solved the Elephant Problem.

"What is the Elephant Problem? Well, anybody who's been to the George Eastman House will know that one of the first things you see is the giant elephant head in the main lobby. It is so noticeable and striking that it demands to be photographed. The Elephant Problem is that, since the subject is static, and the number of vantage points to take a photo of that elephant is limited, the number of possible photos is also limited, and there ends up being perhaps a half-dozen different shots that can be gotten, and so they all start looking the same. And on every visit I've taken at least one of those cookie-cutter photos.

"Except for my last visit, where I finally solved the Elephant Problem, at least for myself, with the attached. It may not do a lot for you, but it's a load off my mind."

It's quite possible that I like this picture because I know that house so well, and have walked up that staircase so many times. Or maybe it's because, like so many other people, I too have wrestled with The Elephant Problem! This could stand for the difficulty that faces us all when trying to find our own individual approach to photographic subjects that are too well known and too comprehensively photographed already.

Mark's solution to The Elephant Problem seemed like a nice way to end this post. It offers hope that no subject, even the badly "overexposed" ones, are ever truly exhausted.

Mike

A few honorable mentions: I'd like to thank each and every one of you who submitted work for this call. You were legion. Here are the names of some (not all!) of the people whose work it positively pained me to leave out: Donald Vetter, Peter Komar, Thomas Johns, Wayne (no last name given, but, guessing based on his email address, it might be Bruzeks), William Schneider, Stephanie Luke, Dana Thomas, Mark Johnson, John Kennerdell, Jake Schoellkopf, Dan Smith, Robert Johnston (no relation), Hugh Conacher, Robert Deegan, Ed E. Powell, Rob de Loe, Thomas Paris, Brian Schnupp, Christian Lund, John Bergholm, Anton Soliva, Randall Teasley, Bruce Walker, Phil Krzeminski, Wisawa Sripungwiwat, and Chris Fuller. And if you don't see your name here, don't despair—the goal of the final set was not just excellence, but also balance and representativeness.

Technical details and links
Bryan Hansel: "Sony A7II converted to infrared with a [LifePixel] Super Color conversion. Making the black-and-white image takes a few steps. I start in Lightroom and color-correct the image using a custom camera profile. After that I move into Photoshop and use TK Infinity Masks with a pixel output to convert it to black-and-white. After that I bring it back into Lightroom for dodging and burning and final adjustments." The shot was handheld and taken from a canoe. Here's Bryan's website.

Ned Bagno: Although he made "Joe's Flower" with a flatbed scanner, for most of his photography, Ned sold all his digital cameras and bought a medium-format film camera after reading this article on TOP back in 2012, and reports he has "shot nothing but film since then."

Richard Alan Fox

No surprise, Richard Alan Fox is also an accomplished painter (and "a retired COBOL cowboy") who lives in New City, New York and has a studio in the Garner Arts Center in Garnerville, New York. He takes pictures of his children using Olympus and Panasonic Micro 4/3 cameras using Lightroom and Photoshop to convert the raw files. (COBOL cowboys have been in the news lately as they migrate from the workforce into retirement, leaving large scale clients bereft.)

George Housley says he seldom works in black-and-white, as he feels most of his pictures work best in color. He lives near Tupelo, Mississippi, and is still using Canon DSLRs..."for which I apologize," he wrote. No apologies necessary!

Glen Paling made his Mexican pelican picture with a Panasonic Micro 4/3 camera: "I love them for their portability while traveling."

Steve Buettner made his picture in Colorado in 2007 with a Canon 30D ("my first 'serious' digital camera") and EF-S 17–85mm ƒ/4–5.6 kit lens.

Mark Gregg: Nikon F4s with ("probably," he says) the 80–200 ƒ/2.8 zoom. Tri-X film, D-76 developer. "Paper...probably Ilford or Seagull."

Mike Stone took his picture with an Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the Olympus 45mm ƒ/1.8, at 1/200th, ƒ/4, 200 ISO. You can see more of Mike's work at his website.

Ed Wolpov's first digital camera was an Olympus 2020 in 2000, and he now works with a Canon 5D Mark IV and Lightroom. Here's Ed's website.

Lois Elling used a Fujifilm X-E2 and 18–55mm kit lens. Here's more of Lois's work.

Alex Buisse's website is well worth a visit. "This image was shot on a D810 with a Nikkor 16–45 ƒ/4. I used my Elinchrom flash for most of this session but this one was lit by the climber’s headlamp only."

Hans Muus: "Fuji X-Pro2, 50–230mm at 205 mm, 1/125 sec. (IS and no coffee) and ƒ/14. ISO 400, LR and Nik Silver Efex." Hans has a website as well.

Mark Rouleau: "From what I can remember it was taken with an Olympus E-M1 Mark II with a Panasonic 20mm lens. I was playing with DxO Photolab at the time, which is probably why I overdid the local contrast. Conversion was probably DXO Filmpack."

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ed Donnelly: "Really nice work by all. What a great way to head into the weekend."

Rodolfo Canet: "A glorious selection, indeed, I loved them all, but I must confess I find Mr. Wolpov's image wonderful, absolutely bewitching."

wts: "Most of these would make stunning and unforgettable covers for books and record albums."

Stan B.: "Gotta give it up for the trunk—those giraffes ain't bad either!"

Black-and-White Update

Submissions for the "Baker's Dozen Black-and-White" are now closed, as of last night at midnight. Counting them was not a trivial task, but I believe I got 223 submissions and well over 350 individual photographs—let's call it "between 350 and 400" and that will probably be correct, although it's possible that if I actually counted the individual photographs the total might be more than 400 or even more than 450. Most people sent three.

From which I now need to select 13.

And virtually none of the 350–400 are incompetent. A few might be somewhat nondescript, but that's the worst I can say. (And even some of those might come alive in context.)

Plus, many people sent along nice letters to me or long explanations of the circumstances of their shot (like Richard Kelley's that I published on Wednesday). I've read all of those, and I beg your forgiveness for not replying to everyone. It would be a week's work or so to write individual replies.

I've completed the first two rounds of editing, and have flagged the entries that I feel merit further evaluation. There are maybe 50 of those. The next step will be to go through all of those again, spend more time with each of them this time, and select the "shoo-ins" you might say—the ones I wouldn't want the feature to be without. That might do it right there, I don't know; we'll see.

With so many to choose from, I'm just going to pick pictures I myself like looking at. I don't know what else to do—the idea that the ones I pick might be "better" and the ones I don't "worse" is silly. We all have our own taste, and I'm sure if any of my friends were doing the editing here we'd all come up with different groups of 13. (Thirteen is a baker's dozen, as you probably know by now.)

And before you suggest it, no, it would be way too much administrative work to actually send everything to someone else and let them edit their own groupings. There's nothing at stake here; no prizes for you, no income for me. We're just having fun.

Mild critiques
Before I get back to work on this (I don't know when I'll finish; sometime between later today and Monday, I imagine), a few observations. First, please allow me to gently suggest that heightening the contrast and "clarity" (it's called "Structure" in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2) in a cloudy sky doth not by itself a B&W photograph make. Second, the same is true for a picture containing areas of white set off from areas of black or areas of black set off by areas of white—the picture still has to work on the level of content—emotion, meaning, connotation, information, feeling-tone—just like any other photograph.

In making "criticisms" I usually like to illustrate what I'm talking about using positive counterexamples, because it's never nice to hold anyone's specific work up as an example of what not to do (what did they do to deserve that?), and there are always exceptions to every rule. So here's a "black on white" photo that I think works very nicely:

Photo by Chris Fuller

It's called "Mueseo Soumaya (Mexico City)" and it was sent in by Chris Fuller of Helena, Montana. "Museo Soumaya was built by Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, in honor of his wife. It contains the largest collection of Rodin sculptures outside of Paris, including the very famous one in this picture. I liked how the pensive posture of the security guard balanced the statue." Me, too. Taken with a Fuji X100.

I'd also like to introduce the notion that submitting three photographs to a "contest" is a bit of a trap. (Not one I set intentionally, I assure you.) It probably felt to people like they would increase their chances if they included three, but actually I think the opposite is the case. Three pictures in a submission is almost like a mini-portfolio; one strong picture is weakened by being in the company of two weak ones, and three pictures that have nothing in common with each other suggest that the photographer has no coherent vision or style, no concerns that distinguish him or her from the crowd. Even if that isn't really the case.

I'd like to show you two examples of the opposite—sets of three in which each picture makes the others stronger.

The first set is by Dan Rubin of New York City, who uses a Canon S95 point-and-shoot and describes himself as "non-professional":

Photographs by Dan Rubin

It goes without saying that you can't represent your range as a photographer and the range of your accomplishments in three pictures. Many photographers can't do that even in a single book, even with forty to sixty pictures or more. But I think by confining himself to a coherent theme, Dan makes a better case for each picture; each picture reinforces the others and each makes the other two stronger.

Another positive example:

Photographs by David Adam Edelstein

Here, in another effective set, David Adam Edelstein of Seattle, Washington, doesn't make use of a common theme, but rather a common aesthetic approach or "mood" you might call it. (Although all three have in common that they were shot with his Leica M Monochrom in Florence, Italy.) All three are dark, enigmatic, and work through a sense of mystery and indirection—in different ways, but together they speak of an underlying visual intelligence in common.

(David did say of the middle picture, "No, I can't explain the panda," which made us both smile.)

In general, though, I was surprised by how many submissions of three seemed diluted...the strongest picture undermined by the other two, or the effect and impression of the mini-grouping weakened by a lack of coherence between the three.

Another type of exception to that might be this pairing of a high-key shot and a low-key shot together, sent in by Peter Dewar, a retiree who lives near Cape Town, South Africa, and photographs for his local camera club:

Photographs by Peter Dewar

These two photographs (extensively manipulated, as he explains!) work nicely together by means of contrasts...they're opposites, in several ways. I suppose it was just accidental that they appear together in this order in his email, but I liked looking at them together, going back and forth.

One and done
Finally, although chosen by a minority of senders, the best approach when you're allowed to send three photos might be just to make a stand: one and done. Pick a strong picture and live or die by it. It's the no-nonsense approach, the don't-hedge-your-bets, take-it-or-leave-it approach. 

Photo by Michael Knowles

This submission by Mike Knowles of Edinburgh, Scotland, taken with an Olympus E-520 and 11–22mm lens at the Maritime Museum in Amsterdam, is a good example of that. It's the only picture Mike sent.

...Although, as we'll see in the final portfolio in the case of readers Lois Elling and Hans Muus, sending more than one picture sometimes does pay off!

A big thanks to everyone who participated. I can't show everyone's photographs because 400 doesn't fit into 13, but I enjoyed seeing everyone's pictures, and I read everyone's comments.

More anon. In the meantime, hope you have a very nice weekend! As for me, I'll be working.  :-)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Oskar Ojala: "I enjoy these posts since the topic brings out interesting stories like the one that was featured a few days ago to thoughts and discussion around photography. B&W is particularly interesting since it's your preferred medium and I anticipated the readership of this blog would be quite comfortable with it (me I mostly do B&W for portraits).

"It's interesting to note what the trend is with contrast and clarity (boosting the local contrast). My advice is to look at photographs from various photographers taken at various times and see what makes then work; a lot of classic BW is not all that high in contrast; looking at such images helps to reset my compass after too much time on the Internet."

Tippler: "Can we do a selection of another baker’s dozen, only this time the selection made on the basis of voting by all TOP subscribers. This would yield a selection based on the group perspective and would be interesting to compare to your selection. Setting up automated voting might prove to be too cumbersome an exercise, though. Happy new year to all you snowbound upstaters. We are merely freezing in NYC."

Mike replies: Actually, crowd-sourcing is not the best method of editing. The reason is that editing is in part a creative process; for example, I pay a lot of attention to the mix of work and to the pacing of a group of photos when I edit a set. As a hypothetical example, let's say that the crowd likes landscapes better than street shots, and, for that reason, four very similar landscape photos all score higher in the voting than the best of the street shots, leaving no room for any street shots at all. That would be a worse set of pictures than one which chose the best landscape but also included a street shot, for those who like that genre. Do you see what I mean?

For example, I'm having to choose right now between two flower closeups. I don't think there's enough room in a set of thirteen pictures for two flower closeups; so I really have to choose one or the other. They're both excellent. Which one I choose will not have to do with which one I merely like the best. It will have more to do with the one that suits the overall mix better and provides the right degree of dissonance or distinction with the picture placed before it and the picture placed after it.

Open Mike: Keep Trying

["Open Mike" is the anything goes, often off-topic Editorial page of TOP. It appears on Wednesdays, except on those occasions when Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is running a bit behind himself. —Yr. Hmbl. Ed.]

-

My friends will have to be patient with me. I don't know how aware you are of the universe of discussion about writing mechanics, but it's extensive—writers work hard doing what they do, and they find a myriad of ways to struggle with it. Just the descriptions of how writers work is an endless variety—everyone has to work out his or her own method. Anne Tyler cannot listen to music when she writes; it interferes with her ability to hear the music of the words. Balzac wrote in the bathtub, and when his pen got hot he emerged hours later shriveled as a prune. Hyemeyohsts Storm labored for years on her deeply flawed but also magical monolithic masterpiece ostensibly about plains Indian culture, going so far as to translate it, allegedly, into Lakota and then back again into English; whereas logorrheic L. Ron Hubbard cast off books left and right like my Butters sheds dog hair...and Butters-hair collects in drifts in the corners of the rooms of my house like dry snow in blowing wind.

Anyway one of the key skills of the kind of writing I do is suiting the subject to size, biting off just enough to chew on, neither too much nor too little. As a former magazine editor, I can testify that it's a skill not everyone has.

...And it's a skill I have definitely not yet learned when it comes to the "Baker's Dozen" posts. What I have done recently is misstep twice. First, I asked for pictures from people younger than 29. Turns out very few of those read TOP, which I guess makes sense...we stick with our age cohort. Young people don't identify with a guy whose world views started to take shape in the '70s, which to them is the mythical world that might or might not have existed before anything was actually real, like the 1920s are to me. Then, disturbed that that call for work had so little reach, I overcompensated, and asked for black-and-white pictures. Not further specified, just black-and-white pictures. With which I have been inundated. I might be coming up on a thousand submissions by now. I'm not saying you should stop, because I am greatly enjoying seeing the work; but I've gotten so many submissions that the idea of reducing it all to thirteen pictures has become almost absurd on its face.

My sin is simply that I lack the judgement so far to suit the concept to the scale of that feature. I'm going to have trouble putting together as many as 13 pictures by younger people (although some of the pictures I've gotten are very fine), so that feature might end up with six or eight photographs in it. And then I'm going to disappoint a whole lot of people who sent me superior black-and-white photographs that I won't have room to present. Both of these missteps are my fault, the result of poor calibration between the concepts and the calls for work.

No tooth
My other writing problem this week is that I'm procrastinating over the Book of the Year post. I'm actually not very confident of my abilities as a writer; it's a longtime, persistent character defect of mine. I know what I want to say about it, but I mistrust my ability to say it. I'll get back to work on that, but sometimes writing is like pulling teeth.

...Then again, I recently had a tooth pulled, and it went okay. It was easier than I thought it would be. I just had to face it, and deal.

So you see? This post is 675 words, more or less, and the topic suits the length. Didn't say too much, didn't run out of things to say. I've had a lot of practice. I'm pretty sure I'll get better at the Baker's Dozen posts, too, with practice. In the meantime, as I say, you'll have to be patient with me. And, dare I hope, forgiving.  :-)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Andrew Eckert: "You might not have many young readers, but I'd wager that they take more from TOP than most other online photography resources. I've just celebrated my 32nd birthday, so I don't make the cut for the under-30 group, but I'm still technically a 'millennial,' and I'd count TOP as a major influence on how my approach to photography developed. Then again, I'm probably among the last group of people whose first camera was a standalone object rather than an app on a phone, so even my perspective might be a little dated."

John Camp: "I was a newspaper columnist for a few years, and had to do three columns a week. It was like a very slow death, and I eventually went back to straight reporting with great relief. I honest-to-God don't know how you do this blog thing, especially at your quality levels. Of course, the need to eat occasionally is always helpful in freeing the creative juices.

"As for the black-and-white photos, why not create some subcategories? As you said, reducing a thousand to thirteen is going to be a problem. I can see getting the number down to a hundred, or even fifty, but after that, it's throwing darts. Maybe B&W portraits, B&W landscapes, B&W street, etc. You also buy yourself a few free columns that way...."

[Former Pulitzer-Prizewinning reporter John Camp, who writes thriller novels under the name John Sandford, has well over 30 New York Times bestsellers to his credit. —Ed.]

Call For Work: Black & White (Baker's Dozen)

Mike J., Color Picture

Although I've gotten a few great shots so far, the "Younger Photographers" Baker's Dozen feature is not populated yet, and I've extended the deadline.

In the meantime, I'm loathe to let this new feature fizzle or fade. It's too much fun. Accordingly, we'll just get on with the next one.

So far we've done large format contact prints, smartphone pictures, pictures taken with Leica lenses, and we're working on pictures taken by photographers under 30 (I've got about half that post built so far.)

Next up: black and white.

Please submit 1–3 JPEGs of photographs in B&W in an email with the subject line:

bakersdozenbw

Just exactly like that, nothing different. Send to me at mcjohnstonatmacdotcom. I won't be able to acknowledge receipt, answer questions, or return emails.

It's very important that you get the subject line right. On the deadline of Thursday, December 28th, I'll be searching my email stack for that exact subject line. If your entry doesn't come up in the search, I simply won't see your picture(s). That would be a shame—for both of us!

JPEGs should be 800 pixels wide and saved in sRGB. Tell me your name, where you live, tech detes, and any interesting facts or stories about the picture you'd like to share.

So get out your "grays cameras*." There are no other requirements than that the picture be black-and-white and that you must own the rights to it or know that no one else does. Photoshopped or not, film or digital, new or old, all else is open.

Hope to hear from you!

Mike

*"My little boy startled me at age five when he offered his first critique of Daddy's artwork. He had asked me to take a picture of how small his watermelon hard candy had gotten in his mouth, opening his mouth wide and presenting the remarkably diminished candy on his tongue. Never one to refuse a proffered photo opportunity, I took the picture. Later, though, when I showed the print to him, he launched into a tirade that I still think is wonderful: "Daddy, you need a new camera. Your camera is a grays camera. You need a colors camera. When you buy another camera next time you should make sure it has colors in it." And so forth. It was a pure critique, succinct and pointed—art criticism direct from a five-year-old heart." That's from this post.

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

toronto wedding photographer: "As Karl Lagerfeld once said, 'black and white always looks modern, whatever that word means.'"

Nigli: "'Dad, you always take photos of boring trees. Is it because you're from New Zealand?' (My six year old)."

Ernest Zarate: "As a lecturer at California State University at Sacramento a few years ago, I had the pleasure of teaching a class titled Photography in the Field. This class consisted of alternate weeks of being on field trips to various locales to make photographs, and then to present them to the class every other week. It would be difficult to create a more perfect union of work/critique. As we were going around the room, looking at and critiquing work, there was one student whose work was all B&W. All the other student work was in color. No particular mention was made of it until I asked, 'Why is all your work black and white?' Her answer clarified and distilled everything to a basic and resolute solution: 'Because, when I photograph in B&W, everything is clearer and better.' And of course that is completely true. And 'true.' And when she said this, it make complete and total sense to me. Duh. All my foundational work was in B&W. I saw in B&W. It was my gut reaction to the world. Why would anyone work in anything other than B&W??? There is no de-evolution back to Robert Frank's statement: it is essential and fundamental. Clear as an azure summer sky. Black and White are the colors of photography."

Call For Work: Millennials

For our next Baker's Dozen readers portfolio, we're featuring younger photographers. Anyone in their 20s or younger is eligible. You are this site's smallest demographic (as I just found out), and the feature is not yet populated yet—we still have seven spots left. Maybe you could spell this "o-p-p-o-r-t-u-n-i-t-y."

If you more mature photographers know younger ones, you could tell them about this call for work.

I was going to ask for only teenagers and kids to submit work, but I decided to arbitrarily set the dividing line at your 30th birthday—if you're 29 or younger on the deadline, you can submit. Because work is trickling in so slowly, the deadline, originally yesterday, is extended another four weeks to Thursday, January 11th.

Regular readers might remember this one by my son Xander (short for Alexander). He's 24, and has been shooting his rock-climbing buddies and other scary things with my old Sony A900. 

The specs are the same—send 1–3 picture(s) in an email to mcjohnstonatmacdotcom, saved in sRGB and 800 pixels wide. The subject line must be

bakersdozenyounger

...Just exactly like that, or I won't find your entry when I search for it in the email stack. In the email, tell me your name, where you live, and any details about the pictures you care to share.

Take a shot!

Mike

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Baker's Dozen: Young Photographers (Call for Work)

Good mornin'.

First of all, it's "Cyber Monday" today. It's the day when you're supposed to buy something through the links of your favorite website to help keep them in business (hint, hint) (wink).

I get remunerated for the number of things I sell through my links as well as for their dollar amount, so even if someone (a hypothetical person) were to order a few things of negligible cost they would still be helping out. I'm just mentioning this theoretically—I'm not entirely sure, but I think the terms of service of my various affiliations specify that I can't actually urge you to use my links. I'm just reporting about Cyber Monday here. Here's a list of those affiliates:

B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama

But in case you do, thank you! Of course, I'm just as grateful if you ordered anything through my links during the rest of the year, but I'm trying to go along with the program here. I don't know what I'm doing. It's really hard to make a living on the Web.

It's going to take me longer than eight hours to compile the "Baker's Dozen: Leica Lenses" post, so please look for it tomorrow instead of today. I didn't want to start until I had all the entries in, and they were still arriving as of late last night. 

Next up
To paraphrase Monty Python, and now for something completely noncommercial. For our next Baker's Dozen, we'll be featuring younger photographers. TOP's audience skews old (they have more in common with me—you know, like polymathic sagacity and dashing good looks), but I know you're out there! And I'm sure you more mature photographers know younger ones you can clue in about the call for work.

I was going to ask for only teenagers and kids to submit work, but I decided that would be pushing my luck (extra points if you're still a teenager or younger, though). So we'll arbitrarily set the dividing line at your 30th birthday—if you're 29 or younger* on the deadline, you can submit. The deadline will be Thursday, December 14th.

Regular readers might remember this one by my son Xander (short for Alexander). He's 24, and has been shooting his rock-climbing buddies and other sad and scary things with my old Sony A900. 

The specs are the same—send the picture(s) in an email, saved in sRGB and 800 pixels wide. The subject line must be

bakersdozenyounger

...Just like that, or I won't find your entry when I search for it in the email stack. Tell me your name, where you reside, and any details about the pictures you care to; keep the verbiage shortish if you would be so kind, as I am swamped with words...happily, but still**.

On to "Pictures Taken with Leica Lenses" tomorrow—it is gonna be great.

Mike

ADDENDUM: Peter Marquis-Kyle brought up an interesting wrinkle—this is a call for work from photographers who are young now. But Peter suggested we do a call for pictures people of any age took when they were young. It's a great idea, and I'll do that in the future. But not this time 'round.

*In honor of Jack Weinberg, below, who coined the phrase "Don't trust anyone over 30" during the free speech protests at UC Berkeley***. The phrase, which was picked up by a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and radiated outward from there, "became one of the most memorable expressions of the turbulent 1960s era" according to the Berkeley Daily Planet.

Jack Weinberg. Courtesy Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley Archives.

Jack Weinberg is now 77.

**I know I should take my own advice. I've been writing too "long" lately.

***I hope you noticed that this is an old-guy reference about youth. ("Amused myself, and that's half the battle." —Craig Ferguson)

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Baker's Dozen: Leica Lenses (Call for Work)

Glad you enjoyed the "Baker's Dozen: Smartphone Photographs" on Saturday.

We're trying for two-week intervals, so the next one would naturally be presented on Friday, November 24th...but that's the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., AKA "Black Friday," famous as (usually) the 11th- or 12th- or 13th-biggest shopping day (or so) of the year. So I think I'll post the next Baker's Dozen portfolio on the Monday following. That's "Cyber Monday," a day that might not be quite as popular as Boss's Day (a so-called "Hallmark holiday") but is better known than May 13th, International Hummus Day.

But I digress.

For the next Baker's Dozen, we're asking for pictures taken with Leica lenses.

Here are the specs:

• Send 1–3 JPEGs but no more
• 800 pixels wide
• sRGB
• Tell us who and where you are
• Don't forget the techie details

Send them to me at m c j o h n s t o n a t m a c d o t c o m. VERY IMPORTANT: please use the subject line:

bakersdozenleica

...Exactly like that. The last thing I want to do is scold, but near the end of the submission period I will search my oceanic email stack for messages with "bakersdozenleica" in the subject field, and if your email doesn't come up then I probably won't see your picture(s). So it's important to use that exact subject line. I (a sentient human) won't be looking out for your email; my Mac (a heartless machine) will be. So close is not good enough.

It would be great if you could say a few words about your lens. A picture of the lens itself is not required, but can't hurt. I think I am likely to give a little more weight to pictures taken with lenses that are interesting, unusual, exotic or aristocratic in some way, but don't let that stop you if yours isn't. Pictures taken with any Leica (or Leitz) branded lens of any vintage is eligible. A digital snapshot of a physical print is also okay.

Be creative. That should put you ahead of the game.

Don't forget that subject line. Spread the woid!

Mike

[UPDATE: While Panasonic/Leica lenses are certainly valid for the call, I've already got two I'm definitely going to be using and I'm unlikely to select any more than that. Might select one more. But no more than one more. Just thought I'd tell you in case it might influence your selection decision.

If it's any consolation, Panasonic lenses will feature in a future Baker's Dozen. —MJ]

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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John Robison: "This is where the essential honesty of contributors must be assumed. I was quite shocked at myself because for a brief moment I considered sending in some random photo, claiming it to be shot through Leica glass (I own no Leica lenses). I cannot imagine what possessed me to entertain such a thought for even that brief moment."

Mike replies: Yes, no juvenile games, please! With our medium here people will not be in a position to critically examine files and fooling people (or me) by being dishonest would not be a terribly slick trick. We're just having fun here.

Thanks for pointing this out John.

Nigel: "I have a Leitz Wetzlar projection lens...cost £6. Does that count?"

Mike replies: Thanks for pointing this out too. Early on, "Leica" (Leitz camera) referred to the cameras, and some of the lenses were branded Leitz but not Leica. I changed the post to allow Leitz-branded lenses as well.

Steve Smith: "Re 'International Hummus Day': Houmous—another word Americans can't spell!!"

Mike replies: Actually it's spelled حمص بالطحينة, ḥummuṣ bi ṭaḥīna, which means chickpeas with tahini, tahini being a condiment made of roasted sesame seeds. The dish originated in the Levant, which is the region East of the Mediterranean. The Turks use one "m," but the dialectal word transliterated into Roman characters is ḥummuṣ, and it's spelled "hummus" by the Encyclopædia Britannica, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, and Wikipedia, and "hummus" is the preferred spelling of the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, which is the only one I found that gives "houmous" as a secondary alternative spelling. So I'm comfortable with "hummus."

Never poke an Internet researcher with a stick.  :-)

scott kirkpatrick: "הומוס or hummus only needs one 'm'-like letter in any of its natural languages. The 'mm' is doubled to keep the vowels before and after it short in languages that don't know better, like English.

Mike: Doesn't הומוס mean humus, i.e., organic matter in soil? That what Morfix ("the leading online Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew Dictionary") says. At least, that confusion would constitute another good reason not to spell it with one "m" in English.

scott: "My Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary includes humus as organic matter, and doesn't say anything in either direction about hummus. It's a curious omission, as Israel could not function without hummus."

Jeff Markus: "הומוס a few bars and we'll fake it."

Mike: Jeff wins the Herman Krieger award for best/worst pun not by Herman! Good one, Jeff.