Guy or Gal?

[dmr]

(Ladies - invite more of your friends,

Actually, of all of my girlfriends, I'm really the only "photo geek" among us. Those who have cameras either have nondescript P&S ones or worse <meow!> cell phone cameras.

Most of those I know who are at all into serious photography are guys, and most of them seem to kinda look down on me because I'm not so ga-ga over the Latest And Greatest<tm> DSLRs and such. "When are you gonna go digital?"

I do have a friend at work who does shoot a Nikon N-{something} autofocus SLR. I consider that to be a Real Camera. 🙂

Oh well ... 🙂

 

[MelanieC]

Sorry -- I'm pretty much the only one of my friends, male or female for that matter, who even knows what a "rangefinder" is, not counting the friends I've made because of the cameras themselves.

My other hobbies tend to be solid middle aged mom territory (horseback riding, dogs) so for me the camera geeking is a refreshing change of pace.

 

[tedwhite]

I live in a town of 6,000. Maybe - and this is a long shot - six people know what a rangefinder camera is. Three, all young women, former students of mine at the nearby college wherein I taught a course called Art 386 Beginning Black and White Film Photography, know what an rf is as I made each spend a week with one. The fourth, Matt, has a box full of Leicas that he definitely uses. A picture of one he loaned me is in My Photos. There must be two more.

 

[sychan]

I know quite a few women who are "into" photography, but mostly they use digital (or even the dreaded cameraphone). Rangefinders are generally for dorky male gearhead types, or older people - digital cameras are convenient, and provide an excellent platform for learning photography as well as generally providing results that are as good as most photographers need. Those who are not happy with the results from digital P&S won't go back to film, they'll go with higher end digital.

I personally know 2 women who shoot film, one is not really a photographer so much as someone who thinks antique cameras are cool (I showed her how to load and shoot a Zeiss 6x6 RF that she brought to a party once), and the other shoots Canon SLR film bodies, but last I heard, is looking to go digital.

I run into the occasional film luddite femme at local camera stores and stuff, but my ex is more typical of female photogs, and if you look at her site ( http://www.patchan.com/pindex.html ) it basically all digital. She's got the Mamiya 6 these days, but the odds of her using that instead of the D2x are pretty slim.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Rangefinders are generally for dorky male gearhead types, or older people

😱 I resent that! As soon as I finish my T-Model Ford simulator program I'm writing in Pascal I'll snort back the reasons why that is so sexist! 😛

 

[drmatthes]

Funny, that brings a nice story to my mind that happened to me last year.

I nearly made my girl-friend throw up by means of my vintage camera gear sickness. While I was screwing in my heavyweight 13.5 cm Sonnar, snapping in the turret finder, adjusting it to focal length, aiming, adjusting distance, measuring exposure, setting f-stop and speed and finally pushing the button, she had taken about 36 exposures with her Nikon D70, and still I was arrogant enough to claim I was using the better gear.

Well, to cut it short, after a while, we split. Then, last December, Nikon gave out this warning about their rechargeable batteries for the D series that might explode, so when I read it on New Years Day I thought I better send her an SMS about that risk, as a warning. I will surely not quote the reply, I would be banned from the forum for using bad language.

That's the problem with the gals, they prefer being blown up by a battery over hanging around on RFF like the good guys do.

 

[tkluck]

My wife actualy takes as many photographs as I do but she has no use for my "old crappy cameras" that require stuff like focusing. That and there are very few pictures of cute grandchildren in the galleries.

 

[amateriat]

Well, my SO of 9+ years "doesn't know too much about photography", but somehow has owned an Olympus OM2S and Stylus (original) since before we met (and happens to have a pretty good eye). Not into the digital thing (especially since I've got all the groovy digital scanning/printing stuff, and me to handle it all), and not at all a gearhead, although she likes the "feel" of the OM2S. She doesn't do as much shooting as she'd like, though I'm gently coaxing her to do a bit more. I'll have to get a new lens or two for her (but no more than that – hell, I only have three myself these days). 🙂


- Barrett

 

[jrong]

This is all rather strange. In the circle of women photographers that I know, most are more heavily into traditional film photography and traditional cameras than the men on this website.....

(although I can say that there isn't that much gear talk)

 

[erikhaugsby]

17:1 right now

 

[MelanieC]

This is all rather strange. In the circle of women photographers that I know, most are more heavily into traditional film photography and traditional cameras than the men on this website.....

(although I can say that there isn't that much gear talk)

Do they use rangefinders?

 

[jrong]

Melanie, a mix. Rangefinders, vintage cameras and other gear. Check us out. 😉

A lot of female photographers are also drawn into the whole toy camera thing.

Jin

 

[ruben]

Hi Rachel, Hi Natalia come on in, sit down and have a coffee!

cheers, Jan

I second this kind of call, and perhaps may I warm the milk a bit.

We men live in our jungle, used to the laws of force. I guess women don't like such concentrations for fearing not to stand on an equal footing. This only makes our female RFF members to be regarded by all of us as very special women, which they must be for stepping out and be part of the Forum, which sometimes becomes a real jungle, as Jenni boldly indicated above.

What can we do to have more female members ? I don't know. But I will gladly be satisfied if the already female members stay, find a warm home here, have a special feeling they have an equal footing and cross the quantity barrier by the quality of their presence.

Cheers,
Ruben

PS: Thank you Jan for giving me such a nice lead.

 

[ruben]

Just to remark I think I know the reason why we have so few female members. Open the first page of our Forum, any day any hour, like it was your first time. What do you see ? a forum dealing first and foremost with technicalities at a quite sofisticated degree.

Traditionally women have been unjustifiedly forced to the kitchen rather than to the technical jobs. This, among other things, has caused the feminist uprising of the seventies, still very much alive, which in its turn has started to make a change.

If we were a forum 'first and foremost' dealing with aesthetics and art of photography, I think we would have a bigger female membership. Go to any university on the globe and you will find more women attending Fine Arts than men. Here we meet the call of Shutterflower on behalf of a 'more balanced forum', which in my opinion does reflect a wider wish, within all of us at different degrees.

Are we to ban technical threads ? Of course not. But we can give more audience and echo to non-technical issues of photography, including art. And at the same time when dealing with technical issues we can try, without lowering the level, to make the issues more accesible to non-high technical people, including non-tech women, for the benefit of all of us. Among us the males, I find postings quite hard to follow. It is not about lowering the technical level, but about being able to express ourselves in more a simple language. Are we man enough to stand the challenge ?

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[MelanieC]

Hey, I like gear and I have no problem following the technical discussions. If there's something I'm not familiar with, I'm perfectly capable of understanding the explanations given.

As for the tenor of discussions here, I find this place pretty tame, but then again I used to spend a lot of time on Usenet. If you can handle Usenet I think you can handle pretty much anything. And a number of the Usenet fora I used to read a lot were either at least half, or even mostly, female. Trust me, women can sling it just as well as men can.

I think there are few women here because there are probably fewer women using rangefinders, period, much less classic cameras in general. I have no numbers to back this up, but I have enough observational data that I'd be willing to bet some money on it.

I hope this doesn't sound like a dig at you, Ruben. It isn't. I appreciate the thought you've put into this and your desire to attract a more diverse audience to RFF. You're a good guy.

 

[Macpod]

the answer is obvious

the answer is obvious

im sure someone has mentioned it in some way or another.

theres are ALOT of female photogs out there, just look at flickr. But most women photogs are just happy taking pretty photos with what they have, and when they goto a shop, people arnt gonna be pushing leicas at them. girls just dont have an obsession with mechanical equipment(they have shoes and handbags).

another good poll would be age. i have a feeling rangefinders tend to appeal to the mature sorts.

 

[jcee]

im sure someone has mentioned it in some way or another.

theres are ALOT of female photogs out there, just look at flickr. But most women photogs are just happy taking pretty photos with what they have, and when they goto a shop, people arnt gonna be pushing leicas at them. girls just dont have an obsession with mechanical equipment(they have shoes and handbags).

another good poll would be age. i have a feeling rangefinders tend to appeal to the mature sorts.

I have an obsession with both. 😱 Computers and cameras, as well as shoes and handbags. I also have an obsession with chocolate and balancing my checkbook. People are obsessed with many things at once.

I don't think women photogs just want to take pretty photos. At least the ones I know, including myself, appreciate the art of photography and take photos because we enjoy the process, not just to make a photo to hang by the dining table.

I think in general, you won't see as many women on online forums as you would see men. I happen to participate in many forums, and women are always the minority. Women just might have better things to do than to write and read on some online board... but I don't. That's why I'm here. 🙂

 

[Rich Silfver]

Hmm....

Just to remark I think I know the reason why we have so few female members. Open the first page of our Forum, any day any hour, like it was your first time. What do you see ? a forum dealing first and foremost with technicalities at a quite sofisticated degree.

That could be taken as being quite an insult Ruben - and honestly, the rest of your post contains quite a bit of generalizations as well.

 

[ruben]

Rff Women - Speak Out

Rff Women - Speak Out

RFF WOMEN - SPEAK OUT

At this point and without any relation to any specific posting, I would like to specifically invite all of our not countless women to express their opinion about whatever they want to, and specially concerning how could the RFF increase more women enrolling at the forum, and more women active posting from those already with us all.

We want you and we need you to enrich the forum !

Ruben

 

[mae]

I'm a lady, but I only lurk here. I've noticed the same though, seems to be more male photographers in general. I'm not sure why.