Originally Posted by
rdenney
You're a few decades too late.
When I was living there, I had the almost exclusive use of an old Linhof Kardan view camera that was owned by the Environmental Design department at you-know-where. I was the only student in that program who knew what it was for. They also had a Century Graphic 2x3 press camera that I used to photograph the bonfire one year, and the student camera club sold thousands of those prints (I still have the negative). There were several of us at the time who were into larger formats, and that capability made many things possible for me as an architecture student (including doing commercial paid work for professors, research departments, and other students).
So, you might poke around the MSC Camera Committee (if it's still called that) and try to develop interest. Back in the day, they had a very nice darkroom operation (with five black-and-white and two color individual-use darkrooms, plus a small studio). Me and another guy did plenty of commercial color developing in that darkroom, including Sunday-night processing and contact sheets for a couple of professional rodeo photographers. The last time I was there, the changes overwhelmed me, but I can't imagine that all that interest is completely gone.
One way I generated interest in large-format and darkroom work was to offer a course (even as a student) in the Free University. I taught both photography and bicycle mechanic classes for that and had a blast doing it. They were always looking for teachers.
I'll bet there is still a prof or two in the ED department that has an interest in view-camera photography.
Rick "sometimes you have to create colleagues when you can't find them" Denney
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