Hello again - Boulder, Co

[pgopinath]

I have been a member since at least 2008/9 if memory serves correctly; but not very active unless it wss to buy gear.

I am getting back into it again with a focus on medium format. I am excited by the X2D and also looking at Hassle pads V series.

Prabha

 

[MGrayson]

I have been a member since at least 2008/9 if memory serves correctly; but not very active unless it wss to buy gear.

I am getting back into it again with a focus on medium format. I am excited by the X2D and also looking at Hassle pads V series.

Prabha

Greetings Prabha,

I purchased my very first camera, an Olympus XA, the year I lived in Boulder (1980). A fellow hiker took a picture of me on top of my first 14-er (Mt. Huron, 14,003 feet tall!) and I was hooked. A few years later, I was lugging a Pentax 67 up those peaks. That was a mistake!

Matt

P.S., I am a happy X2D user, although much more sedentary than I was 44 years ago!

 

[pgopinath]

Thanks Matt. And apologies to all who had to endure the inadvertent auto correct errors.

I recall lugging a Nikon F4S up Longs Peak in 1993. That trip hold the record for the most painful and stupidly dangerous photography related thing I have done. Those were the days before I had a good understanding of the dangers of HAPE and HACE. I did the last three hours of the climb with a blinding headache, nose bleeds, burst vessels in one eye, and the overwhelming desire to.just lie down somewhere and go to.sleep.30 years later I am slower and much wiser.

 

[Geoff]

Funny about that. My version was from about 15 years ago, with a short jaunt up a small hill at about 12,000' carrying a Hy6 and no other provisions (no water, no coat, no food), as I was on vacation from my very preparation-conscious wife, and therefore basking in willful freedom. Everyone said the nearby climb to 14,000' was nothing strenuous, and as a simple soul, I believed them. Three or four hours later, I was adrift in a field of boulders, too tired to go on, watching the sun thinking of setting, and was perfectly happy enough to lie down and just give up for the night. Some joyous college-aged kids came bouncing along, spared a bit of water, and so perked up, I got going again, made it to the top. Then started down the long road down, arriving at night in 38º air, shaking to bits. All this was a good plan to not do anything that resembled intelligence or mature judgment. And at the end, not a single decent photo. Not doing that again, that's for sure.

 

[Ai_Print]

In 2000 for a magazine assignment, I hauled a Nikon F100, 17-35mm, 70-200mm, 16mm fisheye and a monopod to the summit of 14,131' foot Capitol peak and back. I used the camera on a monopod with the fisheye as high up as I could hold it to get this elevated shot of the knife's edge ridge, perilously perched with a couple of belay points on my harness in case I lost my balance. I summited all 58 of the Colorado 14'rs in the first 9 years I have lived here (26) and at 57 years old, still routinely take small, medium and even large format cameras above 12,000 feet to make images.

I am looking to get interns and assistants involved this year and beyond though, I don't move as fast as I used to so why beat my self up?