Hi all,
Somehow I didn't scroll down far enough to stumble across this section - I always get stuck at the Equipment boards.
My name is Antje (that's a female northern German/Dutch name, just to avoid confusion 
), and I'm originally from a part of Germany called Westfalen where the woods are deep and the cows are plenty... After studying biology and some years at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, I ended up in a little village between Erlangen and Nürnberg. Where, again, the woods are deep and the cows plenty!
My road to APUG was not exactly straight, even though my dad has been a photographer for 50 years and owns All The Cameras In The World. He actually uses a dozen or two of them regularly, and some of my earliest memories are of him in the darkroom or behind the camera. I basically grew up with the smell of fixer. He tried several times to interest me in photography, but I guess for a 12-year-old or so it's not a lot of fun to have your dad develop your pictures and tell you what you didn't do right... So I didn't touch a camera in decades.
Until my husband brought home a tiny, plastic 2 MP digital camera. He had to work hard to convince me to try it, but when I did, I was immediately hooked. Six months later I had a Canon 10D, and now I own and work with a 20D, a 300/4, three macro lenses, a fast 50 prime and a wide angle. See a pattern here? Right, I mostly take photos of animals and flowers and do macros and I enjoy that tremendously.
But I never really warmed to taking landscape shots or street shots or something like that. And I caught myself cropping more and more of my shots square... and converting them to B&W... Then, one day, my dad showed me a TLR he has, and when I saw the viewfinder, I almost dropped it. It was big, it was bright, it was - what I had missed. And the 6x6 format immediately worked for me. So I went and bought a Rolleicord I, then some darkroom equipment and a scanner, and now I'm shopping for a Hasselblad. Developing my own film is such a nice break from postprocessing in front of the computer, and reminds me pleasantly of my years in a science lab. It somehow felt right straight away. And seeing the film dangling in the shower is immensely pleasing.
And this is how I found this wonderful place! Thanks in advance for all the money you guys will cost me!
Thinking of which, my dad called the other day and told me he had finally fixed the leaking bellows on his 13x18 (cm) camera - would I like to borrow it? I guess I should have said no...
Anyway, glad to be here!
Antje
Somehow I didn't scroll down far enough to stumble across this section - I always get stuck at the Equipment boards.
My name is Antje (that's a female northern German/Dutch name, just to avoid confusion ), and I'm originally from a part of Germany called Westfalen where the woods are deep and the cows are plenty... After studying biology and some years at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, I ended up in a little village between Erlangen and Nürnberg. Where, again, the woods are deep and the cows plenty!My road to APUG was not exactly straight, even though my dad has been a photographer for 50 years and owns All The Cameras In The World. He actually uses a dozen or two of them regularly, and some of my earliest memories are of him in the darkroom or behind the camera. I basically grew up with the smell of fixer. He tried several times to interest me in photography, but I guess for a 12-year-old or so it's not a lot of fun to have your dad develop your pictures and tell you what you didn't do right... So I didn't touch a camera in decades.
Until my husband brought home a tiny, plastic 2 MP digital camera. He had to work hard to convince me to try it, but when I did, I was immediately hooked. Six months later I had a Canon 10D, and now I own and work with a 20D, a 300/4, three macro lenses, a fast 50 prime and a wide angle. See a pattern here? Right, I mostly take photos of animals and flowers and do macros and I enjoy that tremendously.
But I never really warmed to taking landscape shots or street shots or something like that. And I caught myself cropping more and more of my shots square... and converting them to B&W... Then, one day, my dad showed me a TLR he has, and when I saw the viewfinder, I almost dropped it. It was big, it was bright, it was - what I had missed. And the 6x6 format immediately worked for me. So I went and bought a Rolleicord I, then some darkroom equipment and a scanner, and now I'm shopping for a Hasselblad. Developing my own film is such a nice break from postprocessing in front of the computer, and reminds me pleasantly of my years in a science lab. It somehow felt right straight away. And seeing the film dangling in the shower is immensely pleasing.
And this is how I found this wonderful place! Thanks in advance for all the money you guys will cost me!
Thinking of which, my dad called the other day and told me he had finally fixed the leaking bellows on his 13x18 (cm) camera - would I like to borrow it? I guess I should have said no...
Anyway, glad to be here!
Antje
