Digital BW, The Print

Yes, it is a business as well as an art.    I lived for years in Tucson, 
Arizona  which houses the Center for Creative Photography on the University 
of Arizona campus.     I attended countless  mini seminars by photographers 
who gave talks on their careers.   By far the best attended was one given by 
Ansel Adams, who was a real charmer.   The consummate businessman was 
William Wegman who obviously had made big bucks from his "dogs  dressed as 
humans"  images.  He didn't give any verbal presentation but  rather  showed 
badly filmed black and white  videos of his dog "Fay Wray" as she played 
with a ball. He opened the  room to questions.  The first one was  by a 
young woman who asked if he was rich. He quickly answered that he owned a 
Mercedes in Manhattan.   The true artist was W. Eugene Smith. To me, he was 
the consummate printer of black and white 35mm negatives.    I got to know 
Gene quite well when I attended his documentary photography as art seminars. 
    I could go on for hours on Gene, but won't here. He was the stiff necked 
artist who refused to bend to  anyone,  wife/family, magazine/book  editors, 
etc.   He didn't give a damn about the business of  art photography. (He was 
even reluctant to call photography an art, which smacked of  pompous 
elitism.) He died with $13 in the bank.     I greatly enjoy this group, but 
have been consumed with building a web site to sell my black and white, and 
color digital  images of the American West taken over the past 40 years.    
David Lee Guss   aka orson85    Yes, I am also very much into films, 
including Orson Welles.   PS.    I would venture to say that Gene Smith's 
masterful photo essays will be long remembered  after Wegman's cutesy dog 
photos are relegated to the dustbin of history.