I've Got A Big New Camera, Now What?
When my interest in photography grew to the point that I was pretty sure that it would be what I would do we started asking around to see what the best course of action would be for an education in photography. After asking several photographers and doing a little research I decided on a school and knew that I would need a camera that a professional photographer would use. The RB had a negative that was 6×7 cm instead of the square 6×6 that a lot of the medium cameras had at the time which gave you a lot more negative for larger images. It was also the same format as an 8X10 so you could crop in the camera and see just what you would be getting in your final print. You didn’t get but 10 shots to a roll of film, but that was okay. It was also a system that was very modular, I could add lots of new items to it and have extra backs, which held the film, and you could also change viewfinders and lenses. One big drawback was the size, that camera was huge and weighed over 6 lbs. I was all set, now I just had to learn how to use it!
So now I had to find a school that would teach me what to do next. Schools can be hard to pick, especially for photography. Some teach a more art based approach where you are given vague assignments and you photograph something that you think represents what the assignment was about. Some were more photojournalism type programs and I didn’t want to work for a paper or magazine. There were some that were focused on commercial and I was sure that I didn’t want to sit around all day and photograph hair dryers or whatever was the product of the day. In the end I chose a program that covered a little bit of everything but had a strong emphasis in portraiture, which is what I wanted to do and was what most of the photographers that I talked to did.