[LargeFormat] Tough Audience

[rstein]

Dear Friends,

    If you live long enough you see it all. If you have the kind of luck I
have sometimes it sees you....

    I addressed a group of camera collectors this last week regarding Olde
Tyme Photographye. That is the stuff where you dress up in the frock coat
and the attitude and try to figure out how to make an adequate exposure on a
100 ASA film in bright sunlight with a lenscap.

    I dressed for the lecture - frock coat, etc. - and made a set of colour
slides to illustrate the recent trip to Sovereign Hill . I also introduced
the audience to the Mighty Shen Hao by means of the slides. You can get
their attention if you have a glamourous actress in evening gown posing with
the camera.*

    What a business - lecture went well and no-one died in the process, but
it occurred to me that showing off a ratty old Nagaoka with a Beck lens and
a home-made tripod to a group of collectors who have brought along
Sandersons and perfectly preserved mahogany tailboard cameras is a little
tame. Plus the reflection that well over half the audience earned their
living doing what I was doing for a hobby....

    They were kind. No one fell asleep audibly. I think the Shen Hao was a
hit and the actress certainly was. I can see the level at which to pitch
further lectures. I got a bottle of sherry as a fee and I am satisfied.

     One good thing - a very good thing. When I talk to people my age or
older, they have the cultural and historical basis to understand what I say.
If  I spoke of Veroboard, Paxolin, Araldite, ebonite blocks, Seccotine, or
any of a host of other once-common materials I would get a blank stare from
a young audience. Thank goodness for the old collectors.

     Uncle Dick

    PS: I did point out to them that they were owned by their collections.
They go places, do things, build structures, cheat, lie, steal, and spend
money at the behest of their collections. When I mentioned murder and
cannibalism to support the camera collecting instinct there were several
guilty faces in the crowd. I invited them to speculate how much their
collections would finally get when the collectors were sold.....

* You can also get their attention if Uncle Dick poses in the evening gown
but that is reserved for a Sydney audience.