[LargeFormat] Polaroid film/ My first photos

[rstein]

Dear Becky,

     If you are looking for a hood there are plenty of them in the northern
suburbs around here. They used to live out in Midland but they got more
money and moved up-market.

    If it is a lenshood you want, you have several schools of thought.

1. Measure the filter diameter of the lens you have. Probably 52 to 58 mm?
Maybe even 62 or 67. No matter - get a wideangle solid lenshood for this
diameter.

    Wideangle since when you move the lens up, down, or sideways it will
tend to see a little more up down or sideways - kind of like looking out
under your own eyebrows. If you have a normal size hood out there you may
start to get vignetting.

2.     Ditto for the measurements and the wideangle, but make it a rubber
one. Then if you start to vignett you can fold the hood out of the way.

3.     The compendium or bellows lenshood will generally let you adjust not
only for the depth of draw but also for the angle of the aperture - you can
get a good shading of the lens but avoid any vignetting. They can be dear,
but are available on the auction market as well. In a pinch you can make one
from a scrapped old bellows camera.

4.     So what's wrong with painting flat black inside of an ice cream
container and sticking it on the front of the lensboard, already? Pecan
Fudge is the icecream of choice.

    Niece, you can do ANYTHING with a 4 x 5 large format camera. If it ain't
available any more it can be remade. If it can't be aforded it can be
cobbled up. If it can be coated onto a piece of flat paper you can take a
picture on it, and that includes the Pecan Fudge ice cream. When you use
your large format camera you may be snap looking, but you will not be snap
shooting. You will be creating the picture, not just capturing it.

    You will also have special licence to do things that other photographers
would not approach. People will take you seriously when they see the size of
your apparatus. They will obey when you command. You will be permitted to go
places and do things - push old car bodies down into slot canyons, spray the
State Governor with canned string, line up cats, etc. You must just adopt a
fearless and positive attitude.

    Uncle Dick