Any APUGers in San Antonio???

[jdlehmann]

I am interested in starting a monthly meeting to share tips, pictures, equipment opinions, etc. Any takers? The meet-up group is all digital now.

jl

 

[Zebra]

Wish I was!! Sold 300 acres two years ago in Pipe Creek, just short of Bandera. Sweetest piece of ground, had a about a mile and half of rock bottom Pipe Creek on it to boot. Damn cedar fever drove us to Asheville, NC. Not bad but not 300 acres of god's country either. (okay I admit I didn't walk away empty handed--the sell led to a 20 x 24 camera in the closet but truth be told I would trade it back for that piece of ground)

Good luck getting the group started. Have a mango margarita at Los Barrios next time your there for me would ya.

best,

Monty

 

[kerrpanda]

apug'ers in Kerrville

There are 2 of us in Kerrville! I belong to 2 camera clubs in the area and am still the only iflm/darkroom photographer left! I think your idea is great.
Cynthia

 

[scootermm]

Not San Antone... but close, Im an Austinite.

Nice to hear you are starting this up... I hope goes well.

 

[photobizzz]

Well I am in Iraq but in Oct ---> I will be in Killeen, 45min N of Austin on I-35. Scootermm, what is your normal setup? RF, SLR, MF, LF?? I mainly shoot with a RF but when I get back to Texas and trip to Austin would be nice, some great street shooting in the downtown area.

 

[Jeff Searust]

Another here in Austin, LF and MF --not a single camera with batteries and a fridge full of film. keep me apprised ---would even consider driving to SA for a meet.

 

[steelydam]

I'm in S.A. - would potentially be interested.

 

[whitecat]

I'm in SA and new here but interested.

 

[manjo]

I am in Austin.. would not mind driving down to SA if there are ppl meeting there.

 

[CorreCaminos]

I'm in Austin and driving to San Antonio or anywhere else is not a problem. Any meetings yet?

 

[jdaivpmed]

I'm in SA as well and would be interested.

 

[nsurit]

Potential interest if Thursday thru Sunday. I'm at Canyon Lake. Bill Barber

 

[Mike1234]

I'm in the NE San Antonio area (Converse) and I'm interested in joining a local group. I've been out of the LF photo arena for a quarter century and am only now climbing back in to keep the fight going. I'll go to meetings.

 

[Mike1234]

Woops... looks like this thread was started in '07. OP probably lost interested very early on. Anyone else want to start a group? I'm too old and lazy...

 

[meltronic]

Hey Mike1234, you're in San Antonio! You responded to my wanted ad for 9x12 film sheaths. Cool. I'm in Austin, but I'd also be interested in meeting you central Texas film dudes in San Antonio, Austin or points in between.

No one has made any solid proposals yet. How about September 12th? We could meet in the basement of the Alamo.

 

[jglass]

I'm also in Austin, like half the folks who have responded here. I would be interested, but I'm primarily interested in color film processing and printing right not, especially sharing resources, equipment and chemistry. I'll start a new thread on that, but I'll check back about this group also.

 

[Mike1234]

meltronic... still looking for the sheaths... many boxes to dig through

jglass... I'm only interested in color (negs) as well... can be scanned and dealt with as pleased in good old Photoshop!!

 

[Mike1234]

Interestingly, as many folks in Austin responded to this thread even though the SATX area has nearly twice the population as Austin... must be the demographics.

At any rate, hey, I'm definitely into some meetings. Maybe some place in the middle... San Marcos or New Braunfels??

 

[jdaivpmed]

Mike,

Yes, there's a big differance in demographics between Austin and SA... actually there's a pretty big differance between Austin and the rest of the state, not that that's a bad thing... then again, maybe it is a bad thing. We only have one "serious" camera shop down here in SA and their non-digital selection seems to shrink a little bit each time I go in there, I'm pretty sure Austin has a little better selection so the demographics work to their advantage in some cases.

John

 

[jdaivpmed]

Speaking of our lack of photo "resources" here in San Antonio... I'm just getting back into analog photography after about a decade of not having picked up a camera that wasn't digital. I almost fell over when I went in to the prolab to pick up my first batch of 4x5 that I had processed and contact printed... almost $100 bucks for 20 sheets! Ouch.

I have some extra space in my shop and had been considering building a darkroom back there. The cost of having LF processing done here in SA pretty well made my mind up on that issue.

Now the question is... Is there sufficient interest in the SA area to have a "community" darkroom? I would supply the space and all of the hardware, but would be interested in renting out time to other area photographers to use the room for their own work. The room would be equipped with a JOBO for processing, as well as trays, and a couple of enlargers, including an 8x10 color enlarger, overall it would be fairly nicely equipped from a hardware standpoint.

I'm building the darkroom either way, but if there's sufficient interest I will probably make it a little bit bigger if I'm not the only one who is going to be stumbling around in there.

Any thoughts or interest in this?

Thanks,

John

 

[Mike1234]

John,

I'm interested. Any idea regarding rental fees? Do we supply our own chems or might we purchase those ready mixed? I only expect to need C-41 (or whatever is the current process). I doubt I'll be doing any of my own printing since I'm scanning color negs and manipulating them in photoshop.

 

[jdaivpmed]

Good Afternoon Mike,

I have been trying to come up with a good way to make this work for everyone... I haven't even got to the point of figuring up the rental fees, I have some more research to do in that department. My initial thought was a monthly base rental fee and then I would stock the more common chemistry and then have a separate billing based on how much film was used. That way if someone only wanted to use some exotic process they could bring their own chemicals and wouldn't be paying for any of the chemicals that they weren't going to use.

Like I said, I'm still in the planning stages at this point so please feel free to make suggestions / comments, etc.

Thanks,

John

 

[Jeff Searust]

There have been some rental rooms like this in austin, but really dont last. The problem stems from the time issue-- a lot of people are initially interested and may even pay into it, but by the end of the first year or so the numbers of people still interested and paying has dwindled to the point of not paying for the space.

I went whole hog and built my own space in my garage-- uncooled and unusable for 6 months of the year, but 100 percent mine. Would I consider renting it? no-- mainly because it's just fine for me, but would be embarrassing to show the wall studs, the inch of dust, etc. My entire space cost maybe 100 bucks to build including space for three enlargers, a sink 8ft x 2 ft made of wood, and places to dry film and prints. I think anyone with a bit of imagination and handiness with a saw and hammer can build a fine space and perhaps much better than mine.

 

[jdaivpmed]

Good Evening Jeff,

That's kind of what I had figured... I'm building the dark room mainly for myself and don't really mind sharing, especially if doing so will offset some of the cost of the build-out. I have the spare space in the back of my shop so it's paid for whether I end up with anyone who wants to rent time there or not.

Talk about not being usable for 6 months out of the year... My tap water is 80+ right now (after cooling down for about five minutes). Never had that issue up in Kansas. Of course we buried our water lines more than a foot underground to prevent freezing so they stayed cooler in the summer as well. Luckily I've got several chillers lying around with nothing to do so I'm sure I'll end up retrofitting one of those into the darkroom, at least to temper the Jobo water bath.

John

 

[Mike1234]

John,

It sounds like you're setting up a nice darkroom. Water chillers are a must during summer the summer months in the hotter states. What film processing formats are you going to offer?

Mike