I have been shooting B&W film for over 40 years and I specialize in silver B&W developing and printing. I own and operate a custom B&W silver lab in Los Angeles and I sell my prints to collectors. Over the years I started to have clients ask me about digital printing and digital capture so as a result I was forced to become digitally knowledgable and I now also teach digital techniques both B&W and color. I also teach traditional B&W silver developing and printing. I can make digital B&W prints that absolutely are as good in contrast and tonal range compared to silver B&W prints. The digital process has come a long way over the pst few years and if you have the right technique and the right equipment you can produce stellar digital B&W prints. I live in both worlds now. I can make digital prints that you can put side by side with conventional silver B&W prints and you cannot tell the difference. There has been a considerable improvement in the quality of materials available for digital printing especially for digital B&W printing. This does not mean that one is better then the other, it just means that we now have more tools at our disposal to use in the creative process. Many of the past masters were not technically oriented and many of them did not know what they were doing when it came to the silver B&W process. I have done some work for the Getty Museum doing archiving of images for them and I have seen prints that were done by past masters, Eugene Atget comes to mind and his prints are not stable and many of them are being lost because he was not darkroom proficient. When you go to see original prints done by the masters you can see the failings that they had. I went to see some original prints of Ansel Adams and upon careful inspection they were full of dust marks and dirt marks. When studying the past masters it is very important to see original prints of there work to evaluate the technical skills that they had. Photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe had custom printers doing there work. One last thing. People that collect photographic images will never pay the price for a digital print that they will pay for a silver print. The funny thing is that most probably ink jet prints are more stable and will last longer then most silver prints. I encounter this all the time when people buy my prints. The first thing they ask me is if the prints are silver prints or ink jet prints. Most people cant tell the difference anyway. There will always be traditional silver printing, it is very magical to watch a print appear in the developer but the fact is that digital B&W prints are just as good as silver prints now. I am not saying that one is better then the other quality wise, I am just saying that there is now a tool that we can use that is exciting and interesting. When I go to photography exhibits almost 100 % of the B&W prints are digital. I still do my exhibition printing using the traditional silver process but I now also offer my work in digital form.