The Path Not Taken . . .

Back in the mid 1990s I belonged to a local camera club. I was relatively new to LF photography and slowly feeling my way around on a boot-strapped shoe-string budget. One club meeting took place at a member's home where he showed us his newly completed showroom for all his cameras.

Wow: This was a dedicated room, maybe 20x30, with built in glass display cases full of minty to pristine examples of notable cameras from Minox, through Leicas and Hassle lads . . .and every odd-ball model and format imaginable. Cabinet space below held seconds (and thirds) of the items under glass.

Displayed the center of the room were two huge ultra-large format studio cameras. Yards of bellows held up by intermediate adjustable frames. Everything was glowing wood and leather. Each had a ground glass measured in square feet. Well, this was twenty-five years ago . . .my best memory now is that they were just sooooo BIG. They dominated the center of the display room like the guns of Naverone.

Weeks later I ran into him at a local camera show. I suggested that we could make a few pictures with one or both cameras. He hesitated. I told him that I was worrking at a major teaching hospital where I had access to X-ray film and MRI materials in large sizes. He was not enthusiastic. I told him that I could get the films developed in their appropriate chemistry in the dedicated automatic processing equipment at the hospital.

His eyes began to scan left and right like he was reading something above my head, His blink rate went above 120/mion and he broke out in a cold sweat and blurted, "You mean take pictures?" Then turned his back and walked rapidly awau.

Now THATS a collector. . . .Not that there is anything wrong with that.