funny questions about your LF camera

[ImSoNegative]

I would like to hear some funny questions that you have been asked by folks while out in the field concerning your LF camera. I'll start. This weekend I was at a state park with my cambo 8x10 trying to get a shot of the beautiful waterfall that was there. There were lots of people there. There was a couple standing behind me watching what I was doing. I could hear the man educating the lady on what I was doing and how "those" cameras are a thing of the past blah blah blah. After I came out from beneath the cloth the man asked me "hey buddy, that's one of those black and white cameras aint it?". I couldn't resist "yeah as a matter of fact it is or unless I decide to shoot color film in it"

[drew.saunders]

"Is that a video camera?" asked in Yosemite of all places, of my cherry wood Tachihara.

[Kirk Gittings]

For some reason this only happened when I was in Canada working on my graduate degree in the early eighties, but it happened many times, "What are you doing, shooting postcards?

[Oren Grad]

I live a boring life - I've only gotten the two classics:

"Is that a Hasselblad?" (about my 3.25x4.25 Crown Graphic)

and

"Can you still get film for that?" (ummm, if not, my behavior right now is a little hard to explain...)

[Archphoto]

"Loopt die ?" > Is it running ? Back in the 80's

At one time a guy with a bike and dressed like a beggar came to me, looked at the camera, a Linhof Master, and said: "wide angle ay ?!" "Assignment ?" "Good for you !"
Later I heard that he was The Hague's most famous street photgrapher.....

In former Eastern Germany (DDR) I was called a press photographer with my Master: they looked at west-tv and saw old american movies with Crown Graphic, Speed Graphic and so on.

[Gem Singer]

Main Street in Decatur, Texas, photographing the vintage county courthouse located there. A young lady walks up to me and asks, "That's an old fashioned camera, isn't it?"

I answer her inquiry about my tripod mounted Canham Traditional 5x7, "It sure is. This camera is almost three years old. Time to replace it with a newer model."

She walked away with a puzzled look on her face.

[Kent10D]

From a guy who wanted to take a peek at the GG: "The picture's upside down! How are you going to fix that?"

Really.

Cheers.

[W K Longcor]

Some years back, my family and I would volunteer at a local historical village. On occation, I would set up as a circa 1870 photographer. One day, I had an 11x14 camera set up -- pointed out the window so folks could see the ground glass image as I talked about the history of photography. One boy walked in, took a look at the camera screen and ran out to the door to yell to his friends. "Come in here quick! They got a real old television in here!"

[Nathan Potter]

A few years ago I was setup on the Maine coast at Pemaquid light. I was really trying to concentrate on the splendid, folded metasedimentary rocks when a young woman with a child spotted me and came over. The conversation started innocently enough but gradually devolved into an attempt at some sort of religious conversion. There was no interest in the camera but only in me finding god. After a while, out of desperation, with me fumbling and trying to concentrate, I cut into her diatribe and explained to her that I was photographing gods work with the camera and that was my way of touching the hands of god. She departed quietly. Later I came to think - hey, that was pretty clever and maybe even has some truth in it.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Eric Woodbury]

At Stonehenge in 1996, a father was explaining to his young son that my 4x5 was "some sort of television".