I have signed up for a class
at Gary Camera. I have a long history of sucking at photography, maybe a little professional instruction will help. I know I began actually learning things years back, when I started listening to people who were obviously smarter than me.
On the other hand, I can always go back to just being a gear geek.
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At the college I went to there was the remains of an old military base at the south end. Lots of rundown but still habital buildings. Some folks put a photography lab in one and for five bucks a month they provided all the chemicals and equipment for developing and printing. You just had to provide your own film and paper. These folks were professional photographers and were willing to impart their knowledge. Best class I took in college.
Dang. Im jealous.
That’s great! I know you’ll enjoy it. You take pretty cool pictures now, I anticipate great art from you now!
Jenny
You’d have drooled over my High School’s photo classes. ’73, to ’76, I took all three years, Occupational Photography.
The B&W printing darkroom had 12 Omega B-22 XL enlargers, six to each side of the room. A large Bessler was there, which could handle 4″x5″ film. The sinks n’ trays ran atop a cabinet down the middle of the room.
A revolving-door light trap allowed uninterrupted access.
The color darkroom had a pair of Omega B-22 XLs, with dichroic color heads.
Out in the classroom area, were four “changing rooms”, of 5’x5′ size, for opening the film cannisters and threading the film onto reels to put into the processing tanks.
Back 1/3 of the facility was a fully equipped studio, with a wide range of lighting and backdrop options.
Not bad for a mere High School lab, I’d say?
Oh, and one of the best instructors of the craft I’ve ever met. The man could do more with a view camera, and faster, than most of us with a bag of 35mm gear on our best days. His 35mm was an old Mamyia Sekor, that he used just to prove that basic equipment would absolutely do the job.
That was a fun three years.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
I wish I had gotten interested in photography in high school. (Well, and radio!) But I would have loved having access to professional darkroom equipment. As was, I sort of faked it for several years using the spare bathroom, and then gave up on it for lack of a good place to permanently install the equipment.
Those old Mamiyas were nothing to laugh about. They were good, solid cameras. I started with an old Pentax that didn’t even have a through the lens meter. Then an Olympus OM-1n, which I still have in spirit (the first one was stolen from my workplace in 1984 and I bought one to replace it that I still have).
I also bought a used Olympus OM-2n, which was the automatic version of the OM-1n, but ended up giving it away to a young friend who needed a decent camera, because I found that I really hated the automatic features.
Which is funny, because the only other SLR I’ve owned is the my Nikon D70, which I run in auto mode nearly 100% of the time :)
Good times, and learning something new is always fun!
I keep wondering if I could get my Pentax repaired. Sometimes the shutter defaults to 1/250th, no matter the setting. And yeah, I replaced the batteries.
Bet you can buy a replacement for $12.
http://www.keh.com , Ed. I’ve only ever gotten one bad camera from them and they replaced it immediately without argument when I let them know the meter was flakey.
I like my m4/3 Oly equipment, but I have to be honest, the one camera I wish someone would release a digital version of is the Fuji GA645. I loved that camera beyond all reason.
If Fuji puts out a digital replacement I will own one, if I have to pillage my 401k to do it.