South Central Pennsylvania?

[Winger]

Fr. Mark - I'm a stay at home mom, though my little dude won't be in school until fall (kindergarten - already?!?!). So my schedule is mostly my own. There's plenty to shoot in Pittsburgh, as well as most of the state parks between there and H-burg. Just let me know.
I was a forensic chemist for 14 years so I like anything with chemicals and am not scared off by much (just look up Mordançage). Cyanotypes can be really nice - it's better to have a predictable light source, but western PA "sun" will have to do. I've gotten some OK results with digital negs, but I don't have a great printer, so there are usually stripes/bands or other artefacts. I like the detail I can get with film negs.

[Winger]

Yay! Now we can visit!!!

Once I'm back there, we'll have to try and figure out a place to meet and shoot.

Oh, and there are car shows in Carlisle, PA in the summer. I don't think they care about tripods, so it might fun. And I might be there with my husband's car anyway (no, no clue which car).

[StoneNYC]

Once I'm back there, we'll have to try and figure out a place to meet and shoot.

Oh, and there are car shows in Carlisle, PA in the summer. I don't think they care about tripods, so it might fun. And I might be there with my husband's car anyway (no, no clue which car).

Darn it! Now I'll have to get my 1983 Datsun 280ZX fixed up then...

[djdister]

When I'm up in that area I like to photograph the Old York County Prison in York, and the bridges (or old bridge supports) over the Susquehanna River around Harrisburg. There are a number of interesting places around York: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...,_Pennsylvania

[seabee1999]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...,_Pennsylvania

As a child, driving around the county, I remember many of the places on the registry. I am from Spring Grove originally and as a kid, I went to school in the at the East Street school. My family and I lived at the bottom of the hill and walked to school every day. There is a lot of history in York and the surrounding area. A lot has changed even since I was a kid growing up. I have many fond memories of the area.

[Fr. Mark]

Fr. Mark - I'm a stay at home mom, though my little dude won't be in school until fall (kindergarten - already?!?!). So my schedule is mostly my own. There's plenty to shoot in Pittsburgh, as well as most of the state parks between there and H-burg. Just let me know.
I was a forensic chemist for 14 years so I like anything with chemicals and am not scared off by much (just look up Mordançage). Cyanotypes can be really nice - it's better to have a predictable light source, but western PA "sun" will have to do. I've gotten some OK results with digital negs, but I don't have a great printer, so there are usually stripes/bands or other artefacts. I like the detail I can get with film negs.

I built a UV light source and use a Gra-lab timer to control it. Freestyle photographic sells units but they cost too much for me. I used six 18" bug zapper bulbs from top bulb dot com and 3 ballasts from Lowes or Home Depot a left over kitchen drawer (my land lord left it in the house) and various left over parts. Less $100.

[Rick A]

North central Pa. here, I'm going to attempt a gathering in May or early June for the twin tiers area, maybe you all would like to visit the Pa. Wilds. There are some cool things to visit up here, not too far from Kinzua Bridge, the ruins of the Bayless Paper Mill and dam in Austin, Pa. The dam burst in 1911 destroying the mill and many homes down the First Fork valley. Camping near by also budget motels.
Bethe, when are you coming home? I visit P'burgh often, and maybe a shoot some time. I can't believe the l'il man starts school already!

[tpersin]

Pittsburgh here too!

[StoneNYC]

I built a UV light source and use a Gra-lab timer to control it. Freestyle photographic sells units but they cost too much for me. I used six 18" bug zapper bulbs from top bulb dot com and 3 ballasts from Lowes or Home Depot a left over kitchen drawer (my land lord left it in the house) and various left over parts. Less $100.

Wait is "Fr." for "father"? why do you have a landlord and aren't you supposed to give up all worldly valuables? This is not a dig, this is a question. Not negative.

By the way, clever, good idea on the UV!

[Fr. Mark]

is "Fr." for "father"? why do you have a landlord and aren't you supposed to give up all worldly valuables? This is not a dig, this is a question. Not negative.

Stone,

Good questions!

I forget that sometimes people don't know the whole story.

Even though I'm not ethnically Greek, I'm a priest in the Greek Orthodox Church. Unlike the Roman Catholics who enforced clerical celibacy sometime around the 8th C and forward, the Orthodox Christians (Greek, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Syrian, etc) ordain married men as well as celibates. There are certain provisos: The person being ordained can only be married once, and his spouse can only have been married once, to him, that is. Married clergy do not remarry if their spouse dies (or they get divorced which does, sadly, happen). Men who feel they must remarry no longer serve as clergy.

Traditionally, all celibate clergy were monks with vows of poverty etc, today some monks who are priests (not all monks are priests, only a small percentage of monks are priests in Orthodoxy) do function as parish clergy outside the confines of a monastery and there are even celibate clergy who aren't monks, though, personally, I think it is a really good idea to have someone (the abbot for a monk or a wife to a married guy) to be accountable to if you are going to be out in the world. Prevents certain temptations/problems.

So, I'm a married priest, 25 years married, priest 5 of them. I have four children: a daughter, then three boys, ages 20, 18, 15 and 12. Nobody in the family quite gets the film thing esp. large format film thing, but I've had an on/off love of photography since I was small. I still have the OM-1 I bought from my dad when I was a teen, sometime around 1983 or 1984. I have a number of other 35mm cameras mostly acquired as gifts or thrift store finds. I made my first LF images as paper negs in a pinhole camera on the Mall in DC in 1977 at the age of 9. I found them recently and realized why I didn't like the prints: the 9 y.o. me didn't realize I was not supposed to print the contact prints through the paper base of the negatives! (it was a large class with lots of pretty young kids and not enough instructors). So, I got out the dektol and some fresher paper and made prints the right way around. I don't know where that or another pinhole camera built from a magazine idea for 126 film went after all those years. For large format I have 4x5, 5x8, 8x10 pinhole cameras (and have ideas for a couple more experimental pinhole cameras), a 4x5 Busch Pressman D with 135mm lens, a 1/2 plate camera I bought of craigslist and restored to functionality. I was so new to LF then I thought it was a 5x7, no, its 100+ y/o 1/2 plate for glass plates. I built an 8x10 around a blacked out opaque projector, gave that up in favor of a sliding box camera then built a sort of tailboard/monorail around that giant lens 18" f3.6. That camera is 30 pounds with that lens, 8 of which is the lens. Partly due to frustrations of that project I recently bought a Sinar P (Ken Lee's influence, too) with 4x5 and 5x7 backs and some DB lens board lenses to go with the Sinar shutter (Thx Igor Reznick). I've been working on mounting to Sinar boards a number of older lenses I've picked up along the way: a 90mm, 7.5" (both 1940-50's enlarging lenses with zillions of aperture blades), a rapid rectilinear that goes with the 1/2 plate camera it's also around 7-8" f/l but only f8 or so max open, uncoated. And, a front element (positive meniscus lens) of a deceased freebie telezoom with home made waterhouse stops just for grins, it's also somewhere in the 5-6-7" range, I think---it'd vignette on half plate, but I was maybe extreme in use of movements and also perhaps it just needs less lens shade (I removed most of the lens shade the other day), it has some interesting aberrations shall we say. Someday I may want a more portable camera than the Sinar with the 300/5.6 on the front but we shall see. I have a lot to learn before I buy (worse: make!) another camera.

I'm putting off getting the Sinar into use 'til at least after Pascha/Easter which for us is April 12 this year plus I also need to finish my "Honey-do" list, too.

I originally trained as a chemist (synthetic organic/biochem smattering of analytical) and worked in research. Later sold scientific equipment and even started an organic cow dairy rather than go back to living in the city after a merger/reorganization found me w/o a job. The failure of that business set me up, in a manner of speaking, to go (back) to seminary. I know, crazy resume.

I hope that clarifies things a little.