I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been playing around with the occasional black-and-white photo lately. It’s hard! I haven’t shot black and white for 40 years, and really, I don’t suppose I was all that good at it in the first place, back when I was a teenager. The darkroom stuff was fun, though.

Anyway, this is a picture of…I dunno. Maybe Mt. Pilchuck? It’s in Washington State east of Everett, more or less, so that’s my best guess. The interesting thing is that this was a terrible photo in color. No matter what I did, it just wasn’t any good. In black and white, though, it’s not bad. It’s still not great, but it’s perfectly respectable.

I’m the farthest thing in the world from a black-and-white nazi. I think most photographs, just like most paintings and most movies, are better in color. But sometimes black and white really is better, usually in cases where the colors are subdued and relatively uniform, and therefore do little except to draw your attention away from the play of light and shadow. This is an example.

BY THE WAY: This was shot through a car window traveling north on I5.

March 17, 2018 — Everett, Washington

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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