Guy or Gal?

Guy or Gal?

  • Guy

    Votes: 1,568 94.7%

  • Gal

    Votes: 87 5.3%
  • Total voters
    1,655
I found this entire post both interesting and entertaining, thank you all!

My local photo club is about 50:50. I am the youngest in the group (by at least 10 years, I'm in my mid 20s), followed by two gals in their late 30s or early 40s, and the rest well over 50. I'm the only one that shoots manual, film, and rangefinders.

Here's the odd part that I'm trying to understand: all the men incessantly talk gear, while the women spend more time viewing the pictures we bring each month and trying to either pimp their daughters to me or set me up on dates with other women :rolleyes:

My name's jano, and I just added one more vote to the guys :p :D
 
I teach Introduction to Black and White Film Photography at a nearby college. The first time I taught the course I thought it was merely some sort of statistical anomaly that 12 of the 13 students were female. The second semester all 13 were female. It varies from those numbers but not much. Some see being able to develop and print B&W as a dying, esoteric art. Others are passionate about photography. A few take the course to fulfill an art class requirement, but not many, because the word is out that it's a hard course. The passionate ones tend to fall into two groups: The first see it in terms of a professional career, the second see photography as an art form, a means of expressing themselves, and they don't seem particularly interested in doing it for money, although that would be nice.

Most just want to know about the camera itself sufficiently to make it do what they want it to do (I fall into that category myself). They want to know what to watch out for. Glitches, that sort of thing. BTW. a requirement for the class is a 35mm manually operating camera. If the camera has an AF capability they must set the camera on manual focus, etc.

Only one student, a Hispanic girl who grew up helping her father in his shoe repair shop, said, "Let's take one apart and see how it works." I gave her a Minolta SRT 101. She downloaded all sorts of repair info from the internet , tore the thing apart, and got it working again. I can't recall what the camera's problem was. I do recall being impressed.

Statistically, she seems to be the exception. As for me, I use cameras, I don't really like tinkering with them or trying to fix them. My long time personal favorites are the Pentax SLR screwmount Spotmatic series. I love the lenses and the camera bodies. Since I became intrigued with RF cameras I borrowed an M3 for a time, then a Kiev 4AM, finally bought a Bessa R. The Bessa R looks like a Leica, sort of, and does pretty much what Leicas do, plus they take Leica lenses and they have a very bright viewfineder. So I saved some money on the camera body.

I encourage my students to consider photography as a career, of course with a few caveats, but in terms of gender it's an equal playing field. No muscles required.

Glad to see more women joining the forum.

Ted
 
peter_n said:
I think we have female members at least into double figures now maybe a dozen or so? :)
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... not counting those of us who haven't taken this poll that is. :)
 
Well, I just took the poll. At last, a hobby my wife can't complain about!

Oh, wait, there are still 12 women here...
 
In my experience, photography classes have been mostly female, and clubs mostly male.
Draw whatever conclusions you like...

Excelsior, you fatheads!
-Chris-
 
My mother taught me to develop film in 1951 or 2, when I was 8. I've just been scanning some of the Anscochrome she processed as a girl, at home in 1939. One of her prize winning photos with eucaliptus, a dirt road, and sheep grazing in the hills above the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto is hanging in our living room...beautiful 5X7.
 
jano said:
I found this entire post both interesting and entertaining, thank you all!

My local photo club is about 50:50. I am the youngest in the group (by at least 10 years, I'm in my mid 20s), followed by two gals in their late 30s or early 40s, and the rest well over 50. I'm the only one that shoots manual, film, and rangefinders.

Here's the odd part that I'm trying to understand: all the men incessantly talk gear, while the women spend more time viewing the pictures we bring each month and trying to either pimp their daughters to me or set me up on dates with other women :rolleyes:

My name's jano, and I just added one more vote to the guys :p :D
Click to expand...
ah, what club is this?????? :D
 
I may have discussed college/university level photography classes before. I taught them as recently as last Spring. Invariably students in these classes today are overwhelmingly female.

However, when I began teaching photography for the first time, at Blackburn College in Southern Illinois, in the seventies, the male/female mix was pretty much even. Also at Cochise College in Arizona in the eighties. I'm not sure why the change from then to now. Perhaps men don't see photography as a fast track to big bucks with some large corporation.

As for me, I prefer the fast track AWAY from large corporations.

Teodoro
 
Don't own a RF camera yet, but a soon-to-buy-one gal here. I personally don't know any female RF users, either, but I'm surprised by the extreme poll result.
 
Well, you could almost say that about men. The ratio of SLR owners to RF owners could be as high as 10 or 20 to 1. In my town of 6500, for example, I have some FSU RF's and two Bessas. Mat Cook has Leicas, and John Charley, the Assistant City Manager (degree in photography) has Contax G1 and G2. John Bocek had an Oly XA, but he moved to Korea.

Higher ratio here, for sure.
 
Natalia said:
I can't speak for everyone, but here's my way to rangefinders:

I started out with digital Nikon Coolpix 995 (3 years ago), then went through several digital SONY's including V1 that helped me achieve my plantation shot (http://www.pbase.com/natalia/image/18650382)....

then I gave up on digi P&S and got Digital Rebel ... Still wanted more control --> got 20D, which I still enjoy and use it for stock library work.

Then one day I thought "What did my Mom an'em used to shoot in their day? I got me a Canon F-1 and Oly OM-4 (although some here will tell me my Mom an'em would not shoot those:)....they probably shot Smenas, Zenits at the best;)

Anyhow, I found myself in the world of manual focus and funky wind knobs. One thing led to another and now I am into rangefinders:)

........12/1 --- c'mon gals!
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Sorry, but I am a guy also.

But I got into rangefinders by accident. I orginally shot with a point and shoot digital camera for several years, but they were low quality and I hated the fact that they were so battery dependent. My brother had a Nikon FM 10, but I did not like the size of it and and it was not pocketable. But I liked the idea that it only used the battery for the meter. My uncle also had a Nikon SLR.

I ran into rangefinders by trying to find cheap film cameras on a BIG auction site. I wanted something with the size of a Point and Shoot, but the flexibilty of a SLR.

Now I enjoy it more than digital point and shoot (it is very pathetic when a 3 year old kid is able can shoot pictures, but very enjoyable when NO ONE understands how to use your rangefinder--"You mean the camera is not autofocus, where is the lcd screen, and I need to change all the settings myself, how do you focus?" There is no dummy mode if you take out the battery.

Then I ran into cameraquest and RFF when I was researching rangefinders on ther internet. I did not realize there was such a big community that focused on mostly out of productions cameras of the seventies.

It was all a blur from then on. Acutally OCTOBER 2005!!
 
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I'm a gal, just now getting into rangefinder cameras, although my partner has shot exclusively with a Leitz Minolta CL for many years now. She's a great photographer, and doesn't have a bit of GAS. To her, there is nothing better than her CL, so why bother with anything else?

I admit to having a bit of GAS but I keep it on the cheap side. I like getting old cameras from the flea market (price limit $10). As for rangefinders, I've got a Canonet 28 from Greyhoundman and have just bought a Walz Envoy from Mike Kovaks here. So I've got one automatic and one fully manual, and I'm stopping there. Really!
 
dany_nyc said:
I'm a gal, just now getting into rangefinder cameras, although my partner has shot exclusively with a Leitz Minolta CL for many years now. She's a great photographer, and doesn't have a bit of GAS. To her, there is nothing better than her CL, so why bother with anything else?

I admit to having a bit of GAS but I keep it on the cheap side. I like getting old cameras from the flea market (price limit $10). As for rangefinders, I've got a Canonet 28 from Greyhoundman and have just bought a Walz Envoy from Mike Kovaks here. So I've got one automatic and one fully manual, and I'm stopping there. Really!
Click to expand...

Welcome Dany...he he...can we chant "one of us, one of us, one of us!" ;)
 
jano said:
I found this entire post both interesting and entertaining, thank you all!

My local photo club is about 50:50. I am the youngest in the group (by at least 10 years, I'm in my mid 20s), followed by two gals in their late 30s or early 40s, and the rest well over 50. I'm the only one that shoots manual, film, and rangefinders.

Here's the odd part that I'm trying to understand: all the men incessantly talk gear, while the women spend more time viewing the pictures we bring each month and trying to either pimp their daughters to me or set me up on dates with other women :rolleyes:

My name's jano, and I just added one more vote to the guys :p :D
Click to expand...

Where is this club now? :p
 
And then there were 15...

My friend Lynn told me about this forum. I've been lurking for the last couple of days as I anxiously watch for the postman to bring a camera my dad has sent me.
 
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