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