The well-known French film-maker and photographer Raymond Depardon has published a new series of pictures of French life as it is and not as it is imaged by tourists and admirers of the French life style. He expressly notes that he has worked in the tradition of Paul Strand and Walter Evans, two American photographers of the so-called Straight Photography School in Photography.
The two-meter-wide images are arresting and beautiful and the most important detail is that they are made with a large format wooden view camera. Depardon remarks that the choice of this technique is deliberate. To capture the quality of life one needs a camera that forces you to become reflective because that is the only way to create the images that express that feeling. This is an important message. Currently Kodak has claimed that there is a renewed interest in silver halide picture making. The efforts by small companies like Spur to produce high-performance emulsions is also encouraging. Humans are like lemmings. They will join any movement that has momentum, be it a Tea Party or digital imagery promoted by the industry. Luckily we have individuals like Depardon who allow themselves a free choice.
The most important message is that the goal defines what technique to use. Sometimes digital is the best choice, sometimes it is silver halide. Many writers still use a pen or a classical type writer to compose poems or novels. Nothing wrong with their choice.
What is wrong is the current idea that the digital technique is the only viable method for the near future. Silver halide imagery has advantages that cannot be provided by digital technology. One needs an open mind and eye to accept this.
The pictures by Raymond Depardon are a living proof that such an open mind will benefit the culture of photography.

The most famous expert in all matters photographic has died at the age of 83. Geoffrey Crawley was editor of the British Journal of Photography from the 1960s to the 1990s. His test-reports are deservedly the best ever written and are still a model and inspiration for technical reports in the photographic industry. He was equally at home with sensitized materials (he started the acutance era in silver halide emulsions and developers), lens tests (the reports on the Noctilux lens and the high speed 50mm lens are unequalled), camera tests (read the Nikon and Canon booklets by his hand) and the techno-cultural interface (his editorials are jewels of erudition). There is no one in the industry who could talk at length about the correct shape of the rapid wind lever or the correct position of the reading cell in the exposure metering system of the SLR.

The BJP lost all of its authority after GC left and it is still a mystery to me why the magazine did not do its best to keep him on board. GC was very reluctant to use numerical results in his test-reports, preferring carefully worded sentences to give a verdict. He was acutely aware that there is a large gap between instrument readings and the capability of readers to translate this information into meaningful information for the photographic practice. He never wanted to be the first one to make a report about a new camera, because he insisted that a really informative analysis should take many months of experience before you know the fine points of a camera and its true character.
GC saw clearly that silver halide photography would come to a deadlock because technological progress had been cut off by the industry. He once hoped that a new emulsion that Kodak had announced with an incredible quantum efficiency would save the day, but Kodak pulled out. He embraced digital technology earlier than most technical writers, but always stressed the qualities of silver halide technology, promoting the hybrid method (capturing on silver halide, scanning for digital manipulations) as the best of both worlds.

It is very rare to find a person that combines modesty with immense knowledge and a genuine British tongue-in-cheek humor. GC was the eminent incarnation of such a person and I am still reading his weekly comments that I have diligently collected and preserved over the years quite often. and with great pleasure.
GC has no equal and will be greatly missed.