My first photographs were in black and white. From age 14 until 27 I was a committed black and white photographer. So the form holds a permanent place of esteem in my thoughts. I often think that black and white is photography. Because of that the prints I’ve purchased to live with have been black and white.
When my career turned to color I wanted to keep black and white in my life. I also wanted to keep daily life in my photographic life, not just the far flung assignments that formed my color photography career. The solution was to maintain a visual journal of daily life in black and white. In addition to the record it kept of life, the diary was a way to practice photography, refine my seeing, and live up to my belief that daily life was a worthy subject.
The truest readings of the diary are the individual contact sheets. They show the flow of life--and my seeing of it--with the most fidelity, mistakes and all.
But I had the same artistic stake in the diary images that I had in my color work. Consequently single images have emerged from the contact sheets and have a life of their own.