Author Topic: Attack of the 'Serious Photographers'...!  (Read 2358 times)

AJShepherd

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Attack of the 'Serious Photographers'...!
« on: July 14, 2013, 04:29:54 PM »
On Thursday as I'd taken some time off I loaded a roll of FP4+ into my Olympus Pen FT, slapped a yellow filter on the lens, and headed off to the Amberley Museum.


Foden Steam Lorry by Antony J  Shepherd, on Flickr

I went there last about four years ago when they were doing a lot of work on the old lime kilns (the museum is in an old chalk quarry where they used to produce lime), and that was now done.


Old Lime Kilns by Antony J  Shepherd, on Flickr

At their bus garage full of old buses, there was this guy with a DSLR and a huge lens (although at least a third of the length may have been lens hood), who was explaining to the curator that he was part of a group who had arranged to do some shooting there, but the curator was unaware of this.

So, as I'm hanging round the garage myself taking pictures like this:-

Open top bus stairs by Antony J  Shepherd, on Flickr

I hear the Serious Photographer explaining to the guy from the museum that, oh no, you can't buy film any more, they don't make that and they don't make photographic paper either, no no no...

I carried on taking pictures on my apparently mythological film by natural light.


Worthing Motor Services by Antony J  Shepherd, on Flickr

"Grr arrgh", I thought, "Temptation to shout 'BOLLOCKS!' rising....!"
But it was too hot to be bothered arguing the toss with someone who had no idea.

Then his mate with the Nikon fitted with some kind of bellows lens hood turned up, with a few people holding a ginormous reflector sheet.


Dark Star Special by Antony J  Shepherd, on Flickr

So I headed off in search of beer but despite the adverts for the Dark Star brewery all over the place I couldn't get any Dark Star beer on site. Boo!

Fluminian

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Re: Attack of the 'Serious Photographers'...!
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2013, 11:36:50 AM »
Nice images and story, AJShepard. Great tonality and sharpness for a half-frame camera.
« Last Edit: July 16, 2013, 11:39:29 AM by Fluminian »
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Ordinal

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Attack of the 'Serious Photographers'...!
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2013, 06:49:29 PM »
Clearly this man knew far more about photography than you given how huge and expensive his camera was. So it must indeed have been imaginary film you were using. Those are great pictures for imaginary film, mind you. I wish I had an imagination that good.
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Late Developer

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Re: Attack of the 'Serious Photographers'...!
« Reply #3 on: July 17, 2013, 01:00:37 PM »
Lovely photos, by the way.  They have a feel of the period of the buses, etc. Nice work.

"All the gear and no idea" springs to mind.

Puts me in mind of a situation a few months back when a guy asked me to show him what I'd been shooting.

(It's worth explaining at this stage that I was using a Nikon F6 with a battery pack - so it did resemble one of the larger digital cameras).

Anyway, as the F6 is a modern (current production model) camera that has a screen on the back, this pillock had decided that it must be a digital camera. He started waxing lyrical about the fact that film is dead and good riddance, digital is much more "accurate" (whatever that meant) and it's so much cheaper 'cos you can pump out hundreds and hundreds of shots of the same thing - whereas with film you're stuck with 36 on a roll.

Anyway, I said I couldn't show him my photos as my camera shot film.  He all-but called me a liar and insisted that Nikon had given up making film cameras years ago and that a camera as new and whizzy as mine (auto focus, auto film wind) couldn't possibly be anything other than digital.

As I was only 2 shots from the end, I rattled them off, re-wound the film, opened the camera's back and removed the film canister.  He then changed tack and started ranting about how much better digital photos were than film and he couldn't understand why I was still shooting film (and black and white at that) when much better technology was available.

It was then that I just collected my things and, without another word, walked away from him - while he was in mid flow. I know it could be construed as being rude but there are just some times in one's life where it's better to just walk away and not to rise to the bait.

The irony is that I do have digital cameras and I do like using them - from time to time. I just can't understand why - whether it's film or digital - people get almost aggressively evangelical about their preferences.  It's not passion, it seems much more like bigotry, to me.....
« Last Edit: July 17, 2013, 01:05:03 PM by Late Developer »
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KevinAllan

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Re: Attack of the 'Serious Photographers'...!
« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2013, 08:30:43 AM »
An interesting set full of character, which I suspect would have been missing from the works of the Serious Photographer.

ManuelL

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Re: Attack of the 'Serious Photographers'...!
« Reply #5 on: July 21, 2013, 03:43:56 PM »
Wonderful photos and nice story :-).
I made a quite different experience when taking the pinhole camera. People carrying around 2000 € DSLRs often think that I'm a professional photographer just because my camera is so different then theirs. (The tripod may also add to the impression).

Alan

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Re: Attack of the 'Serious Photographers'...!
« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2013, 03:34:45 PM »
nice set . . . and nice story(s)

love the contrast in the pics. old museums etc.
are fantastic places to take pics, these just prove that.

a line I heard long ago springs to mind . . .

"The master of all languages is the person who says nothing!"
« Last Edit: July 22, 2013, 03:36:16 PM by Alan »