Hello, all!
My name is Rob. Chef by trade and consider my self an "unabashed amateur" photographer. I harbor no pretensions to being the next star and am not thinking to make photography my career. I want to continue to shoot mainly to enjoy something creative that is essentially for me.
My career is creative but it is literally creative on demand: my work day consists of many variations of "make me something to eat."

Learned 35mm starting with my granddad's Argus in the late 60s and have (sort of) progressed from that.
For the last few years, I had been thinking about moving up and slowing down and hadn't made that happen as 4x5 was big jump in expenses for what is a hobby and I couldn't quite justify it. However, early this year two things came to my attention that changed that equation in my favor:
The Intrepid 4x5 camera and the Stearmann daylight tank. These two things made it a reasonable possibility to both shoot 4x5 and to process in my small apartment. Bought one of each, a truly basic lens, and the other assorted bit and pieces and dove in. Have just about finished the first 25 sheet box of HP5+ I decided to start with.

So here I am. Absolutely new to 4x5 but not new to photography in general.
I will be reading a good bit of what's here before I ask too many questions--in fact, I've read a bunch already as I'm trying to work out a basic methodology for my self.

Thanks for having me!

Rob