[LargeFormat] Who is Who

[Brock Nanson]

I suppose I should make an effort to add to this thread, since almost
everyone else has!  So here goes...

My name is Brock, and I'm a photoholic (everybody - "hi Brock").

I'm mid-thirties, living in British Columbia, Canada.  Married, two small
daughters.  First got bitten in grade 8 when an older friend let me watch
what was happening in the school darkroom.  The magic of watching an image
appear in the developer tray has never faded... and I hope it never does!
Since then, I've shot transparency and black & white film in 35mm format.  I
have rarely shot colour negative, generally only when someone approaches me
to do family or wedding or graduation photos.  That always makes me
nervous... I find you get to understand your film, and if you don't use it
often enough, it won't always do what you want!

As I write this, I realize that I don't really know what the deciding moment
was that caused me to go to large format...  I had always felt the equipment
was heavy, fussy, awkward and expensive.  And it is.  But for some reason,
it's now a Good Thing instead of a masochistic enterprise.  I looked for a
long while at different equipment, almost built a Bender, then stumbled
across a deal on a barely used Sinar F 4x5 with extension rails, accordian
and bag bellows and a home-built plywood trunk to move it all around in
(thanks Doug B!!!).  I just played with the movements for almost a year
until I found an affordable 90mm super angulon in a 00 shutter.  Never buy
one of these!  The 00 is rare and somewhat delicate, but what did I know...
and I was getting impatient to expose some film.  Optically it's a great
piece of glass and, like someone mentioned earlier, works without the
multicoating!

I found a way to disassemble and stuff a Lowe Photo Trekker AW full of this
gear (plywood box is better suited for container moving across the country
;-) and soldiered on with a small (too small) Manfrotto tripod.  As my
preference is for landscapes, I carried this kit a few miles over the last
several years.  Took it to Australia and Rarotonga, changed film in closets,
under quilts, all those dusty places you shouldn't.  I shoot a combination
of Black & White negative and Velvia transparency - and rarely both in the
same location.  Some things just want color, others don't!

A little over a year ago I decided that the weigh, bulk and fragility just
didn't suit the field - especially with landscapes where I found that I
wasn't using the movements very much.  So I lurked around eBay for a couple
of months before finding a Super Graphic that was supposedly dirty but
pristine otherwise.  Got it from the southeastern US and have been
rebuilding it ever since.  The lens looked like it had been polished with a
nice fine-grit sandpaper, the protective back for the groundglass was
missing, bellows had some pinhole leaks etc.  So while the condition was
less than advertised, at least it was as dirty as claimed!  I modified the
existing lens board to take my 90SA (won't fold up of course) and hope to
use it somewhere other than inside my house in the spring.  The Berg Lake
trip sounds interesting Dave!

My darkroom, after short bursts of enthusiasm over the last three years, is
about done.  The project was built around a 9 foot by 26 inch by 6 inch deep
stainless steel sink I found in a used restaurant equipment store.  I have
an old-as-the-hills Beseler 45 with a lift motor that could replentish the
ozone layer, but the Schneider Componon glass is good.  I'm sometimes not
too sure why I went to the effort to construct the darkroom (my biggest
misgivings were the day I jackhammered the floor to get drainage into that
area of the basement) given how much can be done digitally these days.  But
there really is a magic in printing an image the traditional way and I'm
desperate not to give in completely.  I did, however, leave a Cat5 ethernet
connection in the darkroom for 'future'...

So that's my story.  I sometimes feel a little inadequate with my puny 4x5
in this group of 'real men' with their 8x10's and larger ;-) but it's a
friendly group without any of the petty stuff that seems to crop up on other
lists.

Now, who's next?

R Brock Nanson, P.Eng.
Kamloops BC
Canada                www.nanson.org