Greetings everyone! Just found this site a couple days ago. Can't tell you how refreshing it is...at 33, I was feeling like a dinosaur and a little disheartened by all the "digital this, digital that" discussions.

I shoot 35mm, but would love to move up to the larger formats one day. I love, love, love B&W photography. I develop my own film, and am a novice at darkroom techniques. I have a complete darkroom, still working on a permanent room to keep it in!!! I certainly have found the place to get answers for all my amateur questions!

Look forward to benefiting from the vast knowledge I have already encountered.

~edye

Welcome. It is good to have you join us. I have found this site to be a nice change. A wide range of ability and involvement that adds a great deal of interest to this forum. Good luck in your efforts.

Yuor in a great area of the contry for finding images. Good luck and have fun with the forum.

Good luck and enjoy the forum.

Thanks for the welcome. Thomas, I saw your graveyard shot, where in SC was this? We have some great old cemetaries. My favorite is historic Elmwood, here in Columbia. I enjoyed your website! There are fantastic images throughout the galleries.

Hi Edye,

I graduated from USC (media arts), and lived in Columbia SC for about 7 years :)

I used to love just getting in my car and driving around the outskirts finding old abandoned farms with run down shacks to photograph. Welcome to the site!

Hi Sean!

It's a small world, isn't it???! :) My daughter will be attending USC next year, Studio Art (photography). I'm a transplant myself, been living here since 94. Ah, you're trying to steal my heart! Abandoned places are my favorite subjects. No shortage of it around here, that's for sure!

It's eather Greenville or Abbyville I'm not sure, there are some tombstones their from the late 1600's though and my wife and I had fun speculating about the peaple with in.

Welcome edye. I'm fairly new here, but I feel much like you do. I wish I was only 33 though - and you think you're a dinosaur!

I'm similarly thinking about medium format, after 30 years of only Polaroid and 35mm. I may be getting an old Rolleiflex TLR soon. I like things uncomplicated, but manual. Would love to get a new Rolleiflex 2.8GX if I ever win the lottery :)

I can take nice enough pictures with my current Nikon F80, but I just don't get the same satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment as when I used the manual Pentax SLRs I had before.

I think the TLR's just remind me of the Kodak Brownie I used when I was a kid. A box with a lens. Even today, I look at B&W pictures my family took with those, and there is no grain whatsoever. They also have a certain buttery smooth tonality that I think is just not achievable with 35mm. I also always loved the square format of the Polaroid SX-70 I got in 1974 and still have. Square format, uncomplicated design (basically a box with a lens) - Rolleiflex seems just right, especially since it has to be affordable by a mere mortal.

Pierre,

Ah yes, the lottery! The list of things I would have are long and numerous. I love the look of TLR cameras. A man came into the camera store while I was picking up some film, a beautiful Rolleiflex around his neck.

I shoot with a F3, I use it in total manual mode. Nothing like the feeling of total creation when taking pictures. So, I can relate to your comment.

I have been 'seriously' pursuing photography as art for a year or so now. It's a constant learning process, and I'm learning much more about myself along the way. I have been 'analyzing' how I see images, and what I've noticed, is I see in squares. So, I would like to take that leap into the wonderous world of medium format photography. As you say...when I win the lottery!

Thanks for the warm welcome.

~edye

Hey Edye, glad to see you around here! ;) Get that brand new scanner for Christmas so we can all see what you can do!

Jin

Hey Jin! The scanner is on the list of things to buy with the lottery winnings! Maybe I'll just send my negatives to you, and you can scan them for me???LOL No more dealings with the postal service, til next year! :D

Welcome! I had a connection to USC during my working years -R&D and at the Naval Base at Charleston - also a great place for images. I _might_ move to Hilton Head some day. S.C. is a study in contrasts ;-)

Truly, dr bob.