The Machine resuscitated. - Reminiscence to the heydays of Speed Graphic Photography.

Making photographs with a Press camera from the fifties - now used as a field camera with the legendary Aero Ektar 7" f 2.5 - yellow dot.
There's that feeling you get working with a camera 50 to 60 years old that you don't get with today's polycarbonate wonders - No 'auto' whatsoever - do it all by yourself i.e right in your face, get your hands dirty :
Level your tripod - mount the camera - study the groundglass - frame the subject - place the film cassette - measure the light - set aperture and shutter time - remove darkslide - hold your breath - trip the shutter - reinsert dark slide - Pray...(you did all in the right sequence)
Definitely not a walk in the park....No pain, No gain!
But the outcome can be soooo... rewarding!

Well actually for seasoned non digital photographers it is! They know about apertures, shuttertimes, filmspeeds and light meters.
The only digital gizmo we occasionally use when working with the combo is our notebook (Palmtop with Pcam installed)  

But fear not, we're going to explore the possibilities for those who are interested to learn from mavins in classic photography.

"Dancing with Speeds", would it not be nice to participate under tutelage of seasoned photographers and learn and talk photography , shooting 4x5 Polaroids , evaluation of the works and a nice dinner afterwards?
This will be reality very soon as John D. is inviting some friend photographers to do this "Dance", testing the equipment and preparing the route.
After this period of testing, planning etcetera it will be possible for max 4 persons per event to visit Driebergen-Rijsenburg and experience the non plus ultra: "Making 4x5 Polaroids at leisure" and holding a hard-copy in 20 seconds.
And remember, we will use equipment from the 50 ties and everlasting techniques! The results will blow your mind though!
Next question could be: Where is the progress? How could we forget the quality of conventional photography from years back??

Till then..