I... am a hobbyist/dilettante photographer

I have been shooting for a number of years, but am only a relatively recent re-convert to film. I shoot a little bit of everything, but gravitate toward shooting the urban landscapes that are around me - and my family of course. Though much of my own best work seems to wind up being in B&W, many of my heroes are actually the 70's color pioneers such as Eggleston, Meyerowitz, and Shore. In B&W I am a big fan of the early industrial work by Bourke-White.

My early years of shooting involved a Canon Canonet that my family bought me while I was in high school. I still have it, and love what one can achieve with that type of camera.

More recently I have shot digitally - mostly wth a Canon Digital Rebel Xt. That is a great little camera, and I have well over 30k clicks on it. But, as I got deeper I yearned for more. That started me on a journey that paradoxically led me not to upgrade to a newer, better digital camera.

My left turn began when I first delved back into film shooting via a Mamiya RB67, which is a wonderful camera and sold me on the beauty of big negative film. The ability to handle big dynamic range and really subtle color (even when scanned on a modest flatbed) is compelling to me. I have yet to look back, and the digital camera has been collecting dust (except for when I use it to chase kids of course).

Starting in 4x5 format was an inevitable move up in quality. Ironically enough, the move was originally prompted by a desire to shoot larger 1-shot panoramics after experiencing the frustration that is multi-shot stitching with the digital camera. That equation led to so much computer time and so little shooting time - which was not where I wanted to be. I wanted BIG, but without worrying whether the clouds were moving too fast, or a pedestrian was going to appear in some layers, but not others.

Moving to LF hastened my move toward daylight processing of my B&W film as a means to make the self-teaching not too prohibitive. I don't have space for a full dark room. I have a hybrid workflow consisting of an Epson V700 scanner, Lightroom for processing, and an Epson 3800 for printing. The results are quite nice to my eye - though different from what I produced many years ago in a wet darkroom.

I recently bought a bargain 6x9 folding camera that I bought as a training camera for the kids, but it's good enough that I use it as a carry-about as well.

I am learning a lot with my film cameras.