Good morning, APUG people!

Ralph Javins · 07-07-2008, 09:05 PM

Well, to start this I read some of the comments by others who arrived earlier. Just to get a feeling for the format and what was being said.

I do not think that I can top the story by Terry Again. While I have had a very different life, clearly it has not equaled his.

My father was US Navy for 24.5 years, so we moved around a lot. K-12 schooling took 14 different schools; two of which I went to twice. Parents did some photography when I was a kid. Usual family snapshot stuff. Duty stations ranged from the East Coast to islands in the Pacific.

Got my first 35 mm camera in college; a Yashica Lynx RF. That was replaced a couple of years later with a Minolta SR-1b with a 58 mm f 1.4 lens. By this time I was "hooked."

Built on the SR-1b into a workable system with a Durst 606 and every accessory known to man for the enlarger to handle the SR-1b output.

Got married with all that entails. Had kids. Took lots of photographs of the kids, places we went, things we did. Got unmarried. Lost everything.

Enjoyed a long hiatus from photography while concentrating on the important things in life, like paying child support. Suddenly, after 20 years, the kids were gone, and my paycheck was "my paycheck." During this 20 year time period I received a 2 & 1/4 Square MF, but I could not do anything with it then. It sat in storage for years.

Now I am no longer working and no longer paying child support. Life is surprisingly good. I am the one most surprised.

Now I have a couple of Nikon F and F2 bodies with 7 lenses for them. My old favorite Minolta system has been replaced with several manual focus bodies and 15 prime focal lengths in lenses from 16 mm to 1000 mm, a couple of zoom lenses, and a few accessories. A couple of years ago, I bought a Canon EOS-20D (couldn't find a 20Da) and started down the digital path also. Digital is so quick and convenient. You have it right now. Covering a seminar, convention, trade show, training activity, or something similar with a digital camera is so fast and easy. I can concentrate on the framing and the timing, and the camera seems to do the rest, unless I notice that there is something different. Then I may need to go to an override or manual mode.

Just recently I brought out the old 2 & 1/4 Square MF, and I feel like I did when taking photography courses back in the 1960's. A lot of the equipment from that time period fits right in with the MF. This is fun, and a lot slower paced than the digital and even 35 mm. I have noticed that it seems to take much more time to examine something and decide how I want to photograph it with the 2 & 1/4 Square. Much more thought and evaluation seems to be taking place. It is a very different form of photography, possibly similar to what the Large Format guys must experience.

Anyway, yes, I am having fun, and I am certainly staying busy. If I had known how wild my life was going to become, I might have tried to stay working longer with its predictability and familiarity.

Enjoy;

Ralph Javins