Is LF a leisure class pursuit?

[sun of sand]

There are social classes on this website lol

[Jerry Bodine]

...I'd hazard to guess that the couple in the Mercedes have bought into the "Lifestyle" rhetoric popular with the materialistic sensibilities cultivated by the educational, financial and commercial , yea modernist interests of present.
I'd better shut up

Or maybe the woman was just simply thinking of some activity for her husband to add to his free-time pursuits to get him out from under-foot more?

[Wayne]

I disagree. LF was never a terribly expensive pursuit until recently. I don't know about the relative price of used gear but the relative price of new gear has skyrocketed (1100 vs 5000 for my Wista 45sp in the 24 years since I bought it) and even IF used gear is relatively less the actual practice of large format film photography is relatively more expensive than ever. That's why growing hordes of people are using x-ray film.

IThe effective digital replacement of LF (and MF) as a professional tool and the death of a generation of photographers has made some great equipment available to a new group of less affluent amateurs.

[jp]

I disagree. LF was never a terribly expensive pursuit until recently. I don't know about the relative price of used gear but the relative price of new gear has skyrocketed (1100 vs 5000 for my Wista 45sp in the 24 years since I bought it) and even IF used gear is relatively less the actual practice of large format film photography is relatively more expensive than ever. That's why growing hordes of people are using x-ray film.

$1100 to $5000 over 24 years isn't bad; that sort of inflation has happened to cars, guns, food, and anything made of petroleum products. I don't think the lens and shutter manufacturers would be all gone or out of LF if there were not such a glut of used planars and tessars and such. Enlargers and enlarger lenses and darkroom stuff is dirt cheap these days still, even without the benefit of new supply. Good rare stuff is always expensive and since it's not so common, we can't measure the market with that. Chemistry is cheaper than ever (at least in the US) with generic products such as pyrocat and Internet competition from vendors that would not exist in a brick and mortar business system which would have stocked one brand.

Honestly, on the surface it seems analog photographers talk more about film than actually use film. (I whine about film prices too) Given the means, most would drop a grand on a lens they always wanted but would hesitate to spend that on film. If more people used Xray film, B&H and freestyle would stock it.

[Alan Gales]

No, I don't think class has anything to do with it. You can pick up a 4x5 monorail for less than $200 or pay thousands for some new camera. If you are rich you can afford that nice new Ebony with the expensive glass but it doesn't mean your pictures are going to be any better than the poor guy with the Calumet and an inexpensive 210mm.

Poor guy with the Calumet. I bet you couldn't say that when those cameras were new!

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/leisure+class

[mdarnton]

I use both 35mm (forever) and 8x10 (in the last year). One of the things that sucked me into 8x10 was that it's so incredibly cheap, and I am someone who actually prefers the look of x-ray film to regular film. If I want to buy an old Leica body (I use three, two of them inherited) just one could cost me as much as my whole 8x10 kit, including what I bought for developing, plus my scanner. Comparing new prices isn't really meaningful to me because I have never bought new, in the last 45 years, and now new LF equipment is purely a jewelry market. However, all used film camera prices are incredibly low now. Maybe 8x10 used to be a rich man's sport, but it certainly does not have to be now. Sure, there's always someone who only buys new and only the most expensive stuff simply because it's expensive. . . . but they do that in 35mm and digital, and cars and homes too---it's not an essential part of LF.

[Bruce Watson]

Is LF photography mainly a pursuit of the so-called leisure class?

This thought has never occurred to me. Strapping on 16 Kg of kit and schlepping it up the mountain has never particularly felt like a "leisure class" activity.

What LF is, is hard work. And expensive. And time consuming. Like most any artistic endeavor.

So, is music a pursuit of the leisure class? Painting? Dance? Architecture (don't answer Kirk)? Writing? Sculpture?

Tell a member of an orchestra, any member, that they are part of the leisure class and see how many friends you make with that line.

[Heroique]

Tell a member of an orchestra, any member, that they are part of the leisure class and see how many friends you make with that line.

Just curious, what class should one say they belong to (to win friends)?

It might be a suitable term for the LFers here.

Plus the best answer for the woman in post #1.

-----
The "natural aristocracy" just occurred to me, or "aristocracy of talent."

[Jac@stafford.net]

Tell a member of an orchestra, any member, that they are part of the leisure class and see how many friends you make with that line.

If they are on salary, then are they are they supported largely by the leisure class? Just asking.
.

[StoneNYC]

Anyone who's going to judge someone purely on their income or "not make friends with that person" as it were, isn't the type of person I would want to be friends with.

Good people are in all walks of life, rich and poor.