Carterofmars
7-Aug-2011, 09:42
About twelve years ago I bought a Super Speed Graphic on eBay. I was always fascinated with these photographers with their big slow cameras, hidden beneath dark cloths, evidently seeing something out there in the landscape, something worth recording, something we all didn't notice.
I've always shot 35mm, having a camera since my early teens. Never with any direction really, just snapping away, developing, and then squiring away the prints and negatives in a shoebox.
But, from time to time, through my life, I'd see these LF photographers. I'd see them while on vacation on a beach, or while on a camping trip, and sometimes even in the city, hidden beneath the cloth, working their magic. What was it they were doing underneath there? What was going through their minds? What did those images look like in the end?
A very esoteric business. I was hooked and didn't even know it.
I got older and with age was finally able to afford the camera, and so I bought it, and on the shelf it went; for twelve years. I collected various other cameras over the years, in different formats, and played around with Photoshop, and learned to tweak the images to my liking.
But something was missing.
That camera's time had come. I felt I knew enough to take some pictures with it and said what the heck. I bought the Quickload holder, and the film and the cloth and the rest.
Now I'll have to learn by doing.
The names Joe, and I'm from NYC.
I've always shot 35mm, having a camera since my early teens. Never with any direction really, just snapping away, developing, and then squiring away the prints and negatives in a shoebox.
But, from time to time, through my life, I'd see these LF photographers. I'd see them while on vacation on a beach, or while on a camping trip, and sometimes even in the city, hidden beneath the cloth, working their magic. What was it they were doing underneath there? What was going through their minds? What did those images look like in the end?
A very esoteric business. I was hooked and didn't even know it.
I got older and with age was finally able to afford the camera, and so I bought it, and on the shelf it went; for twelve years. I collected various other cameras over the years, in different formats, and played around with Photoshop, and learned to tweak the images to my liking.
But something was missing.
That camera's time had come. I felt I knew enough to take some pictures with it and said what the heck. I bought the Quickload holder, and the film and the cloth and the rest.
Now I'll have to learn by doing.
The names Joe, and I'm from NYC.