Poll: How old are you LF shooters?

[Changeling1]

22, and have had my 4x5 for just over a year now. Although I haven't had the motivation to use it for the last 4-6 months. Does this make me a bad person?!

No, it doesn't make you a bad person- slightly misdirected perhaps

But seriously,
There surely is a very good reason why the Great Architect of the Universe plunked you down smack dab in the middle of an island paradise- and then placed a 4x5 in your hands. Seek to find out what that reason is.

 

[Curt]

54 and waiting for that senior discount. Is this a bell curve test or someones senior moment? How many of you have heard of an Ethical Will?

 

[johnnywalker]

ok, I'll bite - what is an ethical will?

 

[Thomassauerwein]

Will be 47 in May have shot 4x5 since age 23. will probably enter the 8x10 world in 2007. For studio only. Will stick with 4x5, 6x8 w/shift for landscape work. As much as I love the quality of the bigger negs for me it is to slow.

 

[Denis P.]

42 and very new to LF - as in less than a year.
Been shooting 35mm on and off for about 20 years, then started to get serious about photography some 8 years ago. Soon moved to MF, and got real serious some 6 years ago when we moved into our own house, where I managed to put up a very small (but dedicated) darkroom.
Got my first 4x5 (Speed Graphic) last summer, and soon moved up - thanks to ebay and apug
Looking forward to spring and more shooting...

Denis

 

[Jim_in_Kyiv]

After seeing the above, I have to be cute too.

MMVI - MCMLXVIII

Ó ìåíå òð³ñåòü â³ñ³ì ðîê³â. Maybe. Somebody had to be first in a different alphabet! I just wrote that I'm 38 years old, or that I have many chickens. Let this be a lesson to all - drink coffee, THEN write in Ukrainian.

I've been into 4x5 for 6 years, and now have 9x12cm, too. Used 5x7 in the past, but 2006 is the year for 8x10! With luck - in 4-6 weeks.

Jim

 

[Curt]

http://lifecatchers.com.au/ethicalwill.shtml

It's a world wide experience that I didn't know anything about until last week. It's a collection of writings or notes that you leave your family in which you share your ideas, values and lifes lessons learned. From what I have learned people have been doing this for a thousand years. If only my ancestors had left such a thing, I would have had a better insight into their experiences instead of just what my parents had told me. I heard about it here in the US on public tv but found a nice AU site, I'm sure there are more.

 

[Curt]

http://lifecatchers.com.au/ethicalwill.shtml

This link works.

Thanks

 

[Ole]

I'm 44, which seems to be smack on the average...

 

[argus]

34 and doint it since last summer.
I feel so young in your presence

G

 

[Amund]

33..
Discovered photography nearly four years ago with a cheap digital P&S wich was stolen, bought a better digital P&S for the insurance money. The digital broke down, and while waiting for it to be repaired I thought: "Hmm,let`s see if there`s anything on eBay?"
In a few weeks I had a Nikon EM, FE2 and FA. Then I won a Crown Graphic and my interest was born.....
I have been doing LF for almost two years, 8x10 for the last 8 months, and recently got a real darkroom. From P&S to 8x10 in less than 4 years

 

[b1ltr1te]

31 and shooting 4x5 for 2 years now - not getting any better but have a good time making bad photographs.

 

[hka]

58..
Shooting 4x5 for 1½ years, it was alway my dream to buy some one. After more then 40 years taking pictures on MF this is the ultimo for me... A new camera a new live...

 

[Bill Mitchell]

I've been shooting LF since 1949, and have never yet made a memorable image in that genre.

 

[micek]

44. Started shooting 4x5 about a year ago.

 

[George Losse]

43 here. I first started working 4x5 in 1980. The 8x10 addiction started in1990 and the 8x20 in 1992.

I've tried to go back and shoot small/medium format, but I just love working with those big negatives. Every time I hang a LF negative to dry after processing, they make me forget about any trouble that working with LF equipment might have caused.

 

[blaze-on]

I'm 44, which seems to be smack on the average...

I just turned 50 so I guess I'm above average

Shooting LF since Nov 2004

 

[Christopher Colley]

23, shooting with a "real" large format camera for about 8 months.. shooting 4x5 and 4x10 in pinhole cameras for about 1.8 years

 

[dianna]

39, and new to LF. I would have started long ago, but I admit I was intimidated.

 

[df cardwell]

39, and new to LF. I would have started long ago, but I admit I was intimidated.

In the "Post Fred Picker / ViewCamera Magazine / BTZS world", there has been a great deal of Ideological Purity that simply didn't exist before. It IS intimidating: the dogma, the the doctrine. It hasn't bothered those comfortable with a 'this is the rule, this is how it is done' approach. But it has driven other folks away.

Look at the work of Avedon, Meyerowitz, Nixon, Dow... who carried the LF tradition forward without the need of restricting how cameras should be used.

 

[rbarker]

I agree with df - LF dogma is best approached like tasting wines of unknown origin. Take a little sip, and then spit it out if it doesn't taste right.

 

[waynecrider]

54, started with a Super Graphic in about 98. Should have kept that camera but sold it and fell out of LF. Started buying multiple LF bodies a year after; it's sweet sickness. Now have 2 working 4x5's, two in parts, 1-6x9 Century and 1-3x4 Graflex.

 

[Bill Hahn]

Almost 57....but I was only 50 before gene initiated me into the NE APUG group last year. My hair has turned white since then too...

Hmmmmm... I will be hitting the "Double Nickel" this summer sometime and I have been shooting LF since about 1987 or '88.

gene

 

[VedranRapo]

19, ... last year i started ... with LF

 

[Aggie]

Fingel and I started LF at the same time. I got my camera, and a week later after seeing mine, he got his. I just wish I was his age, and not the 52 that I am.