47 yrs old, but I started with this format at @ 23 yrs old. I know a few my age or older (excluding commercial still life photogs) using LF but the majority are fine arts students less than half my age.
I'm 52, and the first photos I shot were of Spiro Agnew. Who's that you say? I have been shooting 4x5 for about 10 years, MF & 35 for 30 years. I wonder where all the LF photographers are as well. In all my years I haven't seen another in the field. I think at times I will see a Unicorn before I see another LF photographer. Pat.
42, have been shooting 4x5 for 15 years, 8x10 for about 4yrs and gathering components for a home brew 11x14. Have been shooting 35mm since 20yrs starting with a good old reliable college issue Pentax.
I'm 46...Man does the time fly. Instamatic and polaroid as a kid in the sixties. Around 10 years old stopped in the Nikon shop and gallery in NYC and the interest took hold. Dad gave me his Graphic at 13. Music took over at 14. At 15, NYC photographer Victor Laredo showed me briefly how to work in a B+W darkroom. Bought a Nikon FM at 22. Leica M at 33...then it really began. At 35 sold first B+W prints taken with a Yashica twin. Sold in local gallery Leica shots as well as medium format stuff and 4x5. At 44 bought a 12x20.At 45 a Anba 5x7......What next? Hmmmmm Platinum??
39, started about 18 month ago with 6x6 and a few month later with 4x5, before that I bought a 35mm slr ten years ago for some snapping, but the SLR just catch dust the last 9 years.
Scanning this thread it looks like that the modus operandi for LF is: old enough for having the bucks to buy LF gear and young enough to lug everything around.
When I started in photography (1972), Zone VI didn't exist yet, Ansel Adams was a young man of 70, there were no SLR commercials on TV, Kodak 35mm film came in a screw top aluminum can inside a box with a separate instruction sheet, some of their developers came in metal cans; I think the only large format field camera was a Deardorff, and the only automatic 35mm SLR was a Konica Autoreflex!
What an amazing post! I am 46 and two years into large format (4x5). Just took a John Sexton workshop and am INSPIRED and revamping my darkroom for some serious photo phun! Always wanted to be a fine art B&W photographer, but got talked out of it as a teenager. Have studied photography ever since, but realized two years ago with a reduced work schedule, that I could still try out my dream!!!!
I am 38, started LF a 29. Jennifer, you thought that there were less than 100 participants in this forum ? Are you serious ? Between January and now, 1500 different people posted a message.
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