Free 8x10 Eastman!

[michael meyer]

Hi Kirk, I'll bite too.



As a young artist, I'd love that Eastman of yours, though I don't need it by any stretch. I can think of several other equally deserving young artists and college students as I'm just a couple of years out of NYU's Tisch School (not to mention just a couple years into paying for that school...) and have several friends still there.



You can check out what I've been doing since school at my site: michaelmeyerphoto.com. If you tack "/experimental.pdf" onto that address you'll get a look at the series I am trying to get exhibited. It's nominally large format as it's on 4x5 film, but the pictures weren't exactly made with a camera.



My series that your Eastman would be great for is my series "Transience." I've been photographing the two cities I grew up in, Auburn and Lewiston, Maine, as a metaphor for change and loss and as an oblique comment on our consumer culture. I've been thinking of presenting the work as 4x5 contact prints, but 8x10 contact prints would be even better. And the sites are all scouted on 4x5 so I could easily go back and re-shoot them (if not pay for them) with 8x10 for the final product.



If you, or anyone else likes the abstract stuff, check back in a bit for a new project I've been doing. 2"x20" panos done with a Nikon... They're fun. They'll be up sooner or later. Hopefully sooner. But your 8x10 has no benefits for that project.



Your Eastman would also free me up to take my 4x5 toyo into my high-school classes for polaroid fun. At the moment I use the camera for the bulk of my work and don't want to risk damage to my main camera, but if I had another big camera I'd feel much more comfortable about bringing the camera into the classroom for the students to play with.



So your generosity would benefit both me and thirty or so high school students.



But there's lots of deserving people out there. I'd be happy enough if this posting just generated some hits on my website.



Thanks.

[Capocheny]

Kirk,

I'd wholeheartedly give support toward Jim G's suggestion... after all, he's promising something even more valuable than the camera itself!

He's promising his time, which is a priceless (and a rare commodity) in my books!

Secondly, the donation of the camera AND Jim's expertise will help a "group" of future photographers. This combination is a pretty valuable gift to the art of LF photography.

Cheers

[ernie]

Give it to me so that I, in turn, can experience the pleasure of giving it to someone else. In this way you will be doubly rewarded. Tis better to give than to receive, but what bliss to give, to give, and then receive!

Your humble servant.

[domenico Foschi]

kirk, forget my request, if there are young students out there, in need of a camera, then i think i should pull out, and in fact i will.
Wait! I will put an old Dallmeyer Serrac, in good shape WITH Flange, Sorry , no shutter.

Kirk, I'll wait for that deardorff of yours instead....

[Ellen Stoune Duralia]

Wow Kirk! It's random acts of kindness like this that restore my faith in humanity! Way to go, man!

Disclaimer: I'm not putting my 'plea' in the hat - I'm happy with my Horseman. Just wanted to congratulate Kirk for being an awesome human being!!

[Jeremy Moore]

I will throw my hat in the ring. After shooting solely digital and not enjoying the process I moved back into film first with a holga and then a 5x7 B&J. I've been wanting to "move up" to 8x10 for some time so that I can make larger palladium contacts and other alt process prints. Digital negatives are an option for me to print larger, but it's just not as fun as the film contacts! (I'll be saving the digi neg process for the tri-color gum bichromate I'm teaching myself starting this week!) The camera would be used lovingly and I do have experience with older wooden cameras (i.e. the B&J). If I move to something a little newer I'll pass the camera on to someone else.

For the disclaimer: I'm a full-time college student who works near full-time (30-35 hrs/week) just about finished with my double major in social science and philosophy and I am in the midst of a BS in biochemistry (which is really helpful with my movement into the alt process darkroom!). My printing has jumped up in the past 2 months exponentially in the hope of finishing a portfolio to submit for my first entrance into local gallery shows. Not a photo major, but a hopelessly addicted amateur.

[dan otranto]

give it to a school that will use it and make good work with it. (probably college)

[Mike Cockerham]

Hi Kirk

I'll enter my story , I have worked in the the retail camera world for twenty years, graduate of a well known photography school, and part time studio owner. I have been thru school with trying to get by with what equipment you can scrap together. That is why I've been loaning my 4x5 Calumet, two lens and holders, to students who work with me to use for their classes. I have gone as long as three years without seeing this camera until they graduate and return it to me. When the next student comes in and needs to use it I send it out with them. When I was in school I would have loved to have a chance to use an 8x10 camera and I would like to be able to expose these students to this format if possible.

Thanks

[Larry Gebhardt]

My wife will kill me if I buy an 8x10. Yet I am still drawn to the cameras and fear I will soon succumb. So if you give me the camera you will actually be saving my life. And I would then be able to put my life towards making beautiful 8x10 contact prints and bringing peace to the world through art. Just think, your selfless act will save my life and maybe even the world - what could be more deserving than that.

[MIke Sherck]

This is so very cool! I used to do something like it back in the days when one could find 35mm cameras at garage sales for $10-$20. I don't know how many Minolta SRTs and Canon AE-1s I bought and gave to the kids I ran into when I was out photographing. Still have one left, an old Minolta something-or-other. I don't know whether it ever made any difference to any of these kids, but maybe...

You've set yourself a difficult problem: it's one thing to toss a cheap 35mm and a couple of rolls of tri-x at a middle school or high school kid and see the light on their faces; it's quite another to have to wade through the number of stories you're going to see. I'm glad I'm not the one who has to make the decision! Best of luck to you, sir!