Thanksgiving: What Are You Grateful For -- PHOTOGRAPHICALLY?

[paul_neuthaler]

I am grateful for my "new" Rollei 2.8F "Whiteface" Type IV for the

sharpest, best-contrast photos I've ever been able to take -- I even

bought a Rolleikin II in case they discontinue 120/220 film.<div></div>

[thomas_sullivan]

digital....and no, I'm not being a smart ass....I really am grateful for it. Color pics have never been so close to the way I "see" them when I take them as it is with digital. B&W....however....still slightly partial to film.

[rj]

For my family and all the photos that I am going to take today. I am grateful that I can document family events like this. I am just glad that my leicas can take the extreme heat that is my wife's grandmother's house.

[richard s.]

External 50mm viewfinders. Barnack Leicas. XP2. My family's and friends' patience with

my hobby.

[jeff_wilson13]

The little 'Cord accessory button that screws into the cable release socket to bypass that silly two-way cock/release lever.

[brambor]

I am thankful to have family and friends around me who will witness my photos from time to time. Also very happy to be alive and kicking after all these years. I am happy to be able to finagle photographic equipment of my dream into my possession. I am thankful for being able to buy, expose and develop black and white film negative. I am happy for digital photography as it made me a better photographer in film photography. Many thanks to people on photo.net to offer a great community of photo nuts. www.photo.nuts I enjoy you!

[michael j hoffman]

The support of my family, friends and colleagues. Tri-X. My recently acquired M4 (first Leica) and 50/2.8 Elmar combo. Tri-X. My soon-to-be-arriving Sekonic meter. Tri-X. The internet. Tri-X. Baltimore. Tri-X. Arny Freytag. And, oh yeah, Tri-X.

 

Michael J Hoffman

[john_wintheiser]

I'm thankful for the drop in prices of medium format gear. I can finally afford the Mamiya 645 outfit I've wanted for years.

[SCL]

Family first for their support of my photographic endeavors; friends for helping advance my understanding of things artistic and photographic; PN participants for keeping things interesting and occasionally lively; and lastly, a fine day to take more pictures.

[fotografz]

Photographically... just some little stuff. Grateful for a Cortisone shot in my destroyed knee,

so I can still hot foot it around a wedding venue, (it's a freaking miracle). Grateful to those

dumping their Hasselblad for a 20D ... so I can buy 6 Pro Packs of Freezer kept 220 Kodak

Portra B&W for $50. Life's good.

[Brad_]

It's just gear - hard to get excited or be "thankful" over that. Vision drives the end

result more than anything else, anyway. I'm grateful for the relationships with people I have.

[walter_beck]

Life, for providing great photo opportunities; the wonderful mix of digital and film and the ability to chose which I want to use; the friends and family who indulge my endeavor to transition to a photographic career upon retirement; the health to be able to physically get around and shoot images; Adobe and other software vendors for producing the tools needed to render flights of imagination and fancy along with managing images; and all those willing to share their knowledge and experience on PN!

 

Google, Google, Gobble, Google - Happy Techsgiving to all!!!

[jonathan_reynolds]

My eyesight.

[bobtodrick]

My family. I've got a preschooler and a toodler who demand much of my time (willingly given of course). I've certain 'chores' around the house that are mine to do. But whenever I get the itch to go photographing, or disappear into the darkroom for an afternoon I've my families support. I am thankful for my situation every time I hear someone say they've 'given up' photography for the family...it doesn't have to be so.

[blakley]

For all the beautiful things the world gives me to photograph.

 

For the fact that photographing things makes me look for what's beautiful in a world where it's too easy to concentrate on what's ugly.

 

And... for Photoshop, which lets me finish my film photos taken on manual cameras with a flexibility and precision I was never skilled enough to achieve with just light & chemicals....

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

[andy m.]

PHOTOGRAPHICALLY,

I'm grateful for the small number of 'keeper' photos that I manage to take.

[wmwhee]

I am thankful for many of the same things mentioned above--cameras, film, photographic paper. Thanks to the people who developed this equipment and these materials, without whom I would NOT be taking pictures. I am thankful, too, for the outdoors, very probably my subject of choice.<div></div>

[rick_waldroup3]

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone from Dallas, Texas. I am very lucky to have a multitude of cameras, all formats, all styles, but I still use my small rangefinder cameras more than any others. Cheers to everyone who celebrates this holdiay. Best regards, Rick.

[andrewlamb]

Photographically, I have always been grateful to my father in law for giving me

his much treasured M3 which, AS WE ALL KNOW, is the best ever Leica.....

[Tony Rowlett]

Photographically, I'm thankful for my father, first. He taught me at an early age. I was cracking open Kodak Instamatics in the dark and processing film by the 5th grade. Second, my family, of course, who make the majority of my subjects. Third, the delete button on my old, small digital camera (Oly 5050Z). Fourth, the delete button for this forum so I can delete posts!

[larry_cole1]

im grateful that the chemicals used in film photography are bad for the environment. I

want to leave my mark.

Larry

[gaijin]

I am grateful and thankful for Dennis C's incredible post Katrina photos of the New Orleans area, which remind me no matter how bad I sometimes think things are, well they're really not all that bad after all. I'm grateful and thankful that I have the 748th Leica M6 built, and it's still going strong in its original configuration (no CLA's). Most of all I am thankful and grateful that I have such a wonderful wife who supports (maybe I should make that "puts up with") all my goofy hobbies.

[john_perkins2]

Being American isn't a handicap for landscape photography, but the kinds of thing I get up to

it can be slightly troublesome. No offense intended. Happy thanksgiving!

[al_kaplan1]

I'm thankful for all the wonderful people that I've met here on the Leica Forum, especially all of you who've encouraged me to continue on with my projects, from the 15mm series to digging through my old files.

[roger_hicks1]

Dear Paul,

 

What am I grateful for photographically?

 

Living in France and travelling in Europe. Before the usual suspects brand this as an anti-American comment, I love old buildings and the traces of history. The church where I was christened (St. Denys in Cornwall) is over 1000 years old and when I was a boy I lived in Malta, home to the oldest ruins on the planet.

 

When I lived in California, apart from the missions (especially La Purisima near Lompoc and San Antonio north of S.L.O.) I didn't find much that I was as happy to photograph as I could find in, well, Malta, rural France, Mertola in Portugal, etc.

 

Also Ilford, Leica, Alpa, printing-out paper...

 

Non-photographically I'm also grateful I don't have to eat turkey -- and before THAT is taken as anti-American I'd add that some idiot on the BBC reckoned that more turkeys were eaten in the UK at Christmas than anywhere else at any time of year! I'm prepared to believe that wild turkey is edible but I've never tried it: none of the farmed turkeys I've eaten in the last 55 years in any country has been worth the effort of cooking it. Give me a barbecue and a T-bone veal chop or a butterflied leg of lamb any day. Or fenech stufat (Maltese rabbit stew) or magret or confit de canard or rare rib of beef or curried goat or -- well, almost anything really, except McDonalds and KFC, or stir-fried yak penis which I tried a few weeks ago in Lijiang and which was every bit as nasty as it sounds. Well, could you resist? It was either going to be very good or very bad. Shame it was the latter.

 

Cheers,

 

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)