Al Kaplan (1942-2009)


Four years ago today Al Kaplan passed away from complications following a heart attack. Al contributed to several online forums most notably The Rangefinder Forum (RFF) and Photo Net. The threads on the forums following his death attested to the great respect the online photographic community afforded him.

Al gave more than he received. Willing to teach those who asked for advice and he was always ready to share his knowledge with new and long time photographers. He contributed a lot of information and advice for setting up my Project Double-X web site.

Al shot with rangefinders and medium format film cameras. He was an accomplished darkroom worker and did all his own developing and printing.

He was well known for his staple diet of cigarettes and coffee! The members of the RFF forum produced a t-shirt and mug depicting Al and the proceeds went towards a photography scholarship set up in his memory at a local university.

So many wonderful stories, so much skill and knowledge lost forever. However, Al's family have kept his Blog - The Price of Silver - alive and it is still a good read.

I know Al is shooting in a perfect light and place now and I hope for their sakes they have good coffee and smokes!

Thousands of starfish this week following a couple of big storms.

Every day I walk along the beach for 2-3 hours and snap the objects that wash up. I publish a set of ten images every Sunday under the caption Beachcomber on my Tumblr blog.

Post-christmas syndrome....

Beach on Boxing Day.

The three square buildings on the horizon are Dungeness nuclear power station. The beauty of having the station on our doorstep is the ambient temperature is 20c in the winter and the lack of street lights is not a problem as everything glows in the dark anyway - including the people!   ;-))

Santa Susie really nailed it this year. This tome is excellent on so many levels.

Shades of The War of the Worlds.

Concrete thingy for 'The Lady of the North'.