[LargeFormat] Money With Menaces

[rstein]

Dear Graeme,

     My recent silence on the electric line has been due to pressure of
lurk. I have been pursuing devious schemes on the internet auction site to
buy up all the accessories I need to complete my Hasselblad outfit. These
devious schemes involve me sending them money and them sending me goods and
so far it has worked. It has broken my sad dependence upon a local Perth
camera dealer.

    I am in the happy position of being a semi-demi-pro-am-artist-technician
in the photo line. The studio is mine, the gear is paid for, and I can
choose what I want to do. I have my own darkroom and have worked out how to
operate the system from the unexposed film to the final print. Don't laugh -
I meet people who are trying to succeed with no damn idea at all what they
are doing.

    The worrisome thing is meeting people who have been perfectly capable in
the normal photo line being shunted into the digital business and set to
floundering uncontrollably for 3 years. Call me a traditionalist or Ludditie
or cheapjohn or whatever - I am going to stick to the traditional process.
And snipe off all the HB and large format gear that the pros are desperately
abandoning. Our family crest features circling vultures....

     Uncle Dick