Wolverine Line
Riding the train from Chicago to Michigan, Pt. 1.
Not quite what Amtrak shows off on their promo website.
black and white
Monochrome Detroit
Took a tour of the Detroit Institute for Arts and the Bike Hub a few weeks back. It was a chance to explore a part of Detroit I had never seen before.
Cloudy and gray, so black and white it is.
Whitefish Point, Michigan
It’s one of those rare places on Earth: the point of something, as far in as you can go, surrounded by water and stories and wreckage.
Whitefish Point, in the upper peninsula of Michigan, is just such a place. The home of shipwrecks (and a museum) on ol’ Lake Superior, it’s only bested by Copper Harbor to the west.
Imagine a beautiful white sandy beach bordering a lake far too cold for swimming, with driftwood everywhere – like the bleached bones of some mammoth sea creature. From the beach, you can look north and see Canada, just gentle bumps on the horizon, with Superior everywhere else.
Whitefish Point is one of those places that make Michigan Michigan.
A few months back, I landed on a monograph by Edward Weston, one of the greats. I appreciated his landscape work (even more so than Ansel Adams), and especially his detail work of the seascape in California. The textures, the tones, the detail. He had a knack for capturing objects like they were organic, or even human.
So I gave that mindset a try with the driftwood at Whitefish Point, along with a few photos of the scenery.
I didn’t try to match Weston’s color so much as his attention to detail: the little grooves and bends of the driftwood, the feel of the sand, the man-made desolation.
Using the Fuji X-E1’s black and white film emulation mode, specifically with the red filter, I was looking to grab the sky in a dramatic way, too. It was a warm day that day, but there was a breeze, and it felt like some storm could ruin everyone’s beach day at any moment, sweeping south from Superior.
But no storm came. Just gulls and the wind from the lake.
REVIEW: Saul Leiter, ‘Early Black and White’
After some searching and some digging, I finally earned my copy of Saul Leiter’s posthumous new collection, Early Black and White.
It’s the follow up to Steidl’s popular (and delightful) Early Color monograph, which has gone through five editions since 2007. The Black and White series comes in two books, “Interior” and “Exterior.”
You can learn more about Leiter’s biography and style influences from Photo-Eye and Faded+Blurred, but suffice it to say that Leiter’s work, especially his color work, is a recent discovery in the art world. Now we get to see more of his monochromatic work.
The two-book package is nice. The slip cover is a little flimsy, but the books’ paper and quality and top-notch. Often I felt like the photos could’ve been a little larger – some of them scream to be printed 8×10″ on the page. But Early Black and White’s size matches that of Early Color, so at least it’s consistent.
Something I noticed: “Interior” doesn’t necessarily mean just photos that Leiter took indoors. No, “Interior” seems to represent Leiter’s relationships – inside his personal life, with family, friends, and kids. There are photos of relations on the streets, on walks and on rooftops.
Similarly, “Exterior” is outward-looking: strangers, city scenes, classic candid street photography. This is the classic Leiter we’re familiar with from his color work, with reflections, windows, and slanted glances of strangers throughout the book.
There are pieces of both books that I appreciate, but the “Exterior” edition recalls the Leiter that inspires me. There are a lot of photos in “Interior” that seem simple snapshots of friends at parties. I wouldn’t dare argue that these are outside of “art,” but they aren’t as moving. Sometimes they feel like filler.
There are exceptions. In many cases, Leiter makes art of of photos of friends and lovers, as above.
It’s the “Exterior” stuff that shows what Leiter can do, even if it’s not the color stuff that made him famous.
And on that, I will say that, while his monochrome work is delightful, you start to miss Leiter-in-color as you pour through each book. He makes the black and white tones do a lot of work, but they’re not as poetic as those early color photographs.
Leiter’s collection of work still surpasses most street photographers. His way of seeing the world is truly unique, and poetic, and over the course of several books his subject matter becomes truly his. Umbrellas, windows, weather, pedestrians – everyday stuff, illuminated.
Lately, I’ve devoured photography books from the masters, and out of all of those Leiter’s work (and perhaps William Eggleston’s) speaks to me the most.
I hope that these Early books are the just the beginning of the publication of Leiter’s work. The essayists hint that he always had a camera on him. It would be great to see how Leiter, through his camera lens, saw ‘80s, ’90s, and 2000s
A note on purchasing
It’s tough to figure out how to buy this book series. You can’t purchase it directly from Steidl’s website, and the Amazon listing is a series of third-party book sellers.
I found my copy through the Book Depository, a UK outfit, even though it’s perpetually out of stock. The site does offer a nice “email me when it’s in stock” option, though it took me a few tries to hit the “add to cart” button in time.
But the books arrived quickly and at a decent price, and delivery is free. So you may have some luck in finding a copy.
Real Film Border Scans
A nifty option: real film border scans, courtesy of RW Boyer. He has some other options coming down the pipeline as well, from the sounds of it, so stay tuned.
Added a bit of faux grain in Photoshop and used a probably-too-sharp-for-film image off the Fuji X-E1. Note, also, that’s using Fuji’s in-camera B&W filter and shooting a JPG out. So more Fujifilm than Kodak. But oh well.
Thanks RB!
