[LargeFormat] Introductions

[Don Feinberg]

> From: "Don Feinberg" <ducque@mindspring.com>
> " I can't find anything to photograph here in the Ameican midwest.  I much
> prefer the US northeast, much of Canada, northern, central, and eastern
> Europe, ..."
>
> Don,
> I really find this a hard comment to accept! The North American midwest
> covers an area far larger than the UK, yet people there seem to manage to
> produce the odd decent image. Can you honestly say you've visited the
whole
> area, or have you just dismissed it as unworthy of your attention?

Unworthy is hardly the word I'd have used.  And, I may be too hasty, indeed.
But I have explored Illinois a bit, and I've found about 17 bazzilion corn
fields, about 8.5 bazillion soybean fields, and lots of milk cows and pigs.
My GPS tells me that the altitude varies about +/- 50 feet from one end of
the state to the other (except Jo Davies county!!).  I do recognize that
this has turned me off a lot.

I'm much more used to seeing and photographing the fishing villages in Nova
Scotia and Newfoundland, northern Ontario, north central and eastern
Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, the Smokies, the Rockies,
the Canadian Rockies, southeastern West Virginia, the Alps in winter, the
High Tatras, the Bosporous, Capadoccia in Turkey, the north-western coast of
Russia and the Baltics, Israel, Kenya, Uganda, and the Seychelles -- for
starters.  After that, I'm having a lot of trouble looking for knock-down
images among the cornfields in Illinois.

Yes, it is true that I'm exaggerating, and it's true that I have indeed
found some places which seem to have some promise.  I'm sure the images are
there -- but I sure am not seeing them!  For example, Chicago has much truly
great architecture -- but I've never been an "architectural photographer".
18 months into living here, I have yet to make "frame 1" which I'd consider
to let out of the darkroom...

That said, in the Midwest, I've found much more visual stimulation in the UP
of Michigan and northern Minnesota.  But those places are 10 -12 hours'
drive from here...hardly a day trip.

This is a really serious challenge for me.  Hence, my comment.

Don Feinberg