[Leica] Re: Learning the ropes

[Donna-Lee Phillips <dlp@pacific.net>]

OK, I have tried to reset my browser so it doesn't send HTML. If I am
still screwing it up, someone please tell me?

In no particular order, since I have put all the Digests in a file and
can't find the posts I wanted to respond to:

Since this is Friday, sales day, I am no longer considering selling the
IIIf. I have never put a roll of film through it, as it wasn't my
camera. My late SOB (Significant Other Bob) bought it because he was a
collector, and all the parts had the original leather cases. It seems
stupid to sell a camera and lenses which won't bring much money on the
market without at least getting to know them.

I think it was Slobodan Dimitrov who suggested that I look at member's
galleries. Yours was the first I did look at, and I have to confess that
for the first time since my crash exit from photography, I am excited by
what I see.

To the person who asked about my background, I am today supposed to be
writing a new resume so Voc Rehab can (I sure hope) reimburse me for the
monster computer. It is difficult to write a resume in two disjointed
parts, but once I have it finished, I will be able to give a hopefully
brief introduction to myself, where I came from photographically, and
what might lie ahead. The extremely brief version is that I began
photographing while at The Cooper Union in the 60's, as a political
activist, came back for another swipe at academic input at Pratt
Institute where I studied under Arthur Freed, migrated to the West Coast
where I was influenced by Jerry Burchard and the whole photo crowd
there, and then got into conceptual stuff with Lew Thomas and his circle
of influence. Was a founding mother of SFCamerawork, started NFS Press,
taught everywhere I could, and wrote criticism regularly for Art Week
among others. Traveled some, did a fair amount of collaborative work.
Hmmm... that's enough of an introduction after all.

I have never thrown away a book or magazine, and have some interesting
tastes in photography, but that will have to wait until later, as my
books are STILL all in packing boxes.

When the scanner arrives (hard to find black peripherals) I will begin
to put some of my old work--which looks new since I haven't seen it for
twenty years--in digital form, and if finances permit, to scan from my
many thousands of B&W negs to see what I would print now that I didn't
the first time around. Kind of a reintroduction to my self, BC (before
crash).

Is it true a Valoy enlarger can still be found out there? I am no longer
able or willing to do darkroom work, and am glad to have recovered when
I could do a lot of it on the computer, but in a fit of ill placed lust,
I GAVE my old Valoy enlarger to a guy way back in the 70's. I might set
up a very small darkroom if I had the enlarger. Small and very simple.

That's all she wrote for now.

Donna-Lee