[LargeFormat] Introductions

[largeformat@f32.net]

Hi,

Another lurker reporting....

I'm 39, live in the Netherlands and work as an IT consultant. 

Although I always have been facinated by photography since I was a teen I never persued it myself other than buying photography books once a while. Three years ago I finaly went ahead. Actually I wanted to buy a digital camera (Nikon Coolpix 990) as it seemed that it was the future....

A co-worker gave me his old Lubitel and said: try this. Well, I bougth 2 rolls of Tri-X, exposed them and went to a friend to pull his darkroomstuff from the moth-balls. Developed the Tri-X per kodak instructions in D76 (used the wellknown Paterson tank), made a few prints and was hooked. The crappy Lubitel gave me very nice prints (=detail and grayscale) on 12x16" paper (compared to the Nikon). 

After consulting myself, reading a lot, surfing the internet etc. etc. I concluded that the chemical/wet route was what I wanted. After that all went very fast: bought a new 6x6 camera, while looking for a 6x6 enlarger I stumbled over a used Durst L1200 enlarger, because the Durst came with all assecoires for 4x5...6 month later I owned a 4x5 monorail, while looking for a used Jobo CPP someone mailed me he had an ATL2000 up for sale.... Early 2002 I sold the 4x5 monorail and got a 4x5 that handles better in the field. 

It may sound as I'm a hardware junkie, well, I'll be the first to admit that this is the case: I like the technical part of the hobby but actually taking pictures even more!!!!!! I do not have a list of photographers or photographs I like (=would like to copy). After ending the harware buying period (except for a flashkit that arrived today) I'm looking for/developing a photographical language of my own, but haven't succeeded in this yet ofcourse! 

Now switching back into lurking mode.....

Huib

http://home.plex.nl/~hsmeets