Hi guys,
Allow me to introduce myself shortly: my name is Klaas Goethals, I'm currently 18 years old and was born in Antwerp, Belgium. Untill a few months ago, I lived with my family in Meise, a little town close to Brussels. My mother tongue is Flemish, but I speak french, english and (although I'm still learning) by now a little bit of Spanish as well. Currently, I'm living in Toluca, Mexico, where I'll be staying until juin, as an exchange student with AFS. Before coming to Mexico, I was already obsessed by photography. I used to shoot digital, with a Sony Alpha 200, and a whole bunch of objectives I bought second hand in Belgium.
I consider myself as one of the luckiest persons in the world, since my Mexican host family are photographers. My father is 'Juvencio Larranaga', and with his brother Manuel, he's running the photo studio that their father started more than fifty years ago. They own five stores in Toluca, and are considered to be the best studio, wedding and social event photographers of this Mexican city. They are showing me a side of photography I didn't know, and I had never dreamed that one day, I would be exploring it myself. They taught me the art of the analog photography, the magic of the dark room. I am still learning a lot, but as I'm almost living in my darkroom, I can say that I'm making progress every day.
I few weeks ago, I found this forum. I'm known as 'basti' on the belgiumdigital forum (www.belgiumdigital.com), but as the name says, it's 'digital'. Therefore I was happy to find this forum, where I'll probably find an unknown source of information.
My photographic interests lie especially in documentary. Here in Mexico, I found a country without photographic limitations. This country has everything, the people, the landscapes, the little alleys, the streets, the cities, everything. A few weeks ago, I made a photoblog (http://klaasgoethals.wordpress.com), where I'm writing and posting pictures that are significant to me. I am working on a project as well, about a 'Casa Hogar', an orphanatory here in Toluca. You can find the whole serie on my blog. I have a website as well, Dead Link Removed , but it's been weeks that I didn't ad anything.
I'm still using the Minolta system: I own a Minolta 7xi, a Minolta 7000i, a Tokina 28-70 f2.8, a Minolta 50mm f1.7 and the 'Beercan', a Minolta 70-210mm f4. I bought an old Voightlander Range Finder as well, which I'm always carrying with me, in my backpack. I consider that camera as my analog 'Canon G11'
. I love that little thing, because of it's great optical quality and the fact that the light meter is broken (I know that sounds quite weird), but that means that exposition depends completely on how I think it's right, and I'm learning a lot by not using the diafragma setting, like I do with my other camera's, but by doing everything myself.
Anyway, this is it I think, I hope at least one person will take the time to read this 'short' introduction, and I'll be seeing you guys on the forum!
Klaas
Allow me to introduce myself shortly: my name is Klaas Goethals, I'm currently 18 years old and was born in Antwerp, Belgium. Untill a few months ago, I lived with my family in Meise, a little town close to Brussels. My mother tongue is Flemish, but I speak french, english and (although I'm still learning) by now a little bit of Spanish as well. Currently, I'm living in Toluca, Mexico, where I'll be staying until juin, as an exchange student with AFS. Before coming to Mexico, I was already obsessed by photography. I used to shoot digital, with a Sony Alpha 200, and a whole bunch of objectives I bought second hand in Belgium.
I consider myself as one of the luckiest persons in the world, since my Mexican host family are photographers. My father is 'Juvencio Larranaga', and with his brother Manuel, he's running the photo studio that their father started more than fifty years ago. They own five stores in Toluca, and are considered to be the best studio, wedding and social event photographers of this Mexican city. They are showing me a side of photography I didn't know, and I had never dreamed that one day, I would be exploring it myself. They taught me the art of the analog photography, the magic of the dark room. I am still learning a lot, but as I'm almost living in my darkroom, I can say that I'm making progress every day.
I few weeks ago, I found this forum. I'm known as 'basti' on the belgiumdigital forum (www.belgiumdigital.com), but as the name says, it's 'digital'. Therefore I was happy to find this forum, where I'll probably find an unknown source of information.
My photographic interests lie especially in documentary. Here in Mexico, I found a country without photographic limitations. This country has everything, the people, the landscapes, the little alleys, the streets, the cities, everything. A few weeks ago, I made a photoblog (http://klaasgoethals.wordpress.com), where I'm writing and posting pictures that are significant to me. I am working on a project as well, about a 'Casa Hogar', an orphanatory here in Toluca. You can find the whole serie on my blog. I have a website as well, Dead Link Removed , but it's been weeks that I didn't ad anything.
I'm still using the Minolta system: I own a Minolta 7xi, a Minolta 7000i, a Tokina 28-70 f2.8, a Minolta 50mm f1.7 and the 'Beercan', a Minolta 70-210mm f4. I bought an old Voightlander Range Finder as well, which I'm always carrying with me, in my backpack. I consider that camera as my analog 'Canon G11'
. I love that little thing, because of it's great optical quality and the fact that the light meter is broken (I know that sounds quite weird), but that means that exposition depends completely on how I think it's right, and I'm learning a lot by not using the diafragma setting, like I do with my other camera's, but by doing everything myself.Anyway, this is it I think, I hope at least one person will take the time to read this 'short' introduction, and I'll be seeing you guys on the forum!
Klaas
