Black and White Photography Blog, Vol. I

Introduction [draft]

The photographs in this book were taken on the way to somewhere else. I didn’t expect them. I didn’t search for them. (If I did search, they went into hiding). I carried a camera with me for ten years while I walked from the upper east side to west 23rd street where I worked. Sometimes I took the 6 train.

When I left the corporate world, the habit and the camera remained. I have tried, now and then, to do a specific project - but they didn’t amount to much. Some pictures were taken on the way to the post office. Others on the way to what I believed was my destination.

Other than the fact that the images are all in New York City, I leave it to you to discover if there are any thematic threads that tie things together. As I write this tonight - I honestly don’t know what they are.
In other words, I have never explored the city in any systematic way. I don’t know the names of statues that I’ve photographed. I’m still liable to get lost in Central Park although I’ve been there a thousand times. No, as I think back on it, I’ve just wandered through the city and once in a while it would prod me out my lassitude and force me to take a photograph.

In the back of the book, you’ll find notes about where I was heading, and in some cases, a story about a particular photograph. It may help to explain the book’s title.

Dave Beckerman - Sept. 2007

P.S. The blurb test book hasn’t shipped yet, although the estimated ship date was yesterday.