Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Manoli on October 10, 2013, 08:21:40 pm

Title: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Manoli on October 10, 2013, 08:21:40 pm
Since I joined LuLa,  Rob's daily posts were a morning ritual.
Rob - you've gone very quiet for over two weeks now. Hope that's because you're away, visiting family, or on some pleasurable exercise - and not for some other reason.

Anyway, just to let you know that you're missed.
Hope to hear your (written) dulcet tones soon.

M
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: WalterEG on October 10, 2013, 08:32:54 pm
Rob is on yet another of his sabbaticalsaway from LuLa.

Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on October 10, 2013, 10:20:47 pm
I hope he'll be back soon. He adds much value to the Forum.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: RSL on October 11, 2013, 07:22:39 am
Rob is on yet another of his sabbaticalsaway from LuLa.

Walter, are you sure about that? I emailed him on the 3rd and haven't had a response. I hope he's okay.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Manoli on October 11, 2013, 09:00:11 am
I emailed him on the 3rd and haven't had a response.
That's very atypical of Rob.

Quote
I hope he's okay.
I do too - an understatement.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on October 11, 2013, 09:35:40 am
.... I hope he's okay.

He is.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: WalterEG on October 11, 2013, 02:35:18 pm
He is fine and corresponding in a positive and forward-looking tone on an almost daily basis.

He is happy ....  and well.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: RSL on October 11, 2013, 04:12:22 pm
Thanks, Walter. That's a relief.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: ErikKaffehr on October 11, 2013, 04:21:52 pm
Hi,

Nice to hear.

Best regards
Erik

Thanks, Walter. That's a relief.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: WalterEG on October 11, 2013, 07:11:36 pm
Being of a certain age and living alone, and having mates in a similar circumstance, there are phone calls every day or so which are often little more than "Are you kay?  I am okay."

I guess there is a fair bit of that sentiment where Rob is concerned, also.

Cheers,

W
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: RSL on October 11, 2013, 09:55:32 pm
You betcha!

Cheers,
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Rocco Penny on October 12, 2013, 08:57:54 pm
It would be cool to have a beacon,
you know like the batman symbol or something,
maybe some cute little automovile shepherdess driving some little souped up roadster
surely some eyebrow raising tunes,
what the heckin hey you listening to Rob?
OK have a time
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: graeme on October 12, 2013, 10:14:00 pm
C'mon Rob

Graeme
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: HSakols on October 12, 2013, 10:27:10 pm
I admire how Rob can write - and his willingness to share his thoughts.  He clearly has wisdom and years of experience that most of us can learn from - I've never met the guy, but I get a good vibe from him.  Take care Rob.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Jim Pascoe on October 14, 2013, 02:27:28 pm
He went a bit quiet a few months ago and I was worried so I messaged him - and he was fine.  But it does seem strange when he's not around I agree.  Nobody would miss most of us I bet!

Jim
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: petermfiore on October 14, 2013, 04:09:50 pm
Rob is enjoying himself to the hilt.

Peter
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Dale Villeponteaux on October 29, 2013, 09:42:40 am
Still MIA.  Look forward to his return.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 29, 2013, 09:55:54 am
We had a phone call the last days and I will meet him between x-mas and new year in Mallorca.
He's fine.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on October 29, 2013, 10:33:23 am
We had a phone call the last days and I will meet him between x-mas and new year in Mallorca.
He's fine.
Give him best wishes from all of his fans on LuLa, especially from me.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 29, 2013, 12:07:59 pm
Give him best wishes from all of his fans on LuLa, especially from me.

I'll do so.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: David Eckels on October 29, 2013, 12:59:15 pm
Give him best wishes from all of his fans on LuLa, especially from me.

No, no! Me, me! ;)
Hope to see you back here soon, Rob!
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 29, 2013, 01:04:10 pm
No, no! Me, me! ;)
Hope to see you back here soon, Rob!
I'll point him to this thread once I'm there.
So everyone can leave his greetings for Rob here.
:)
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: WalterEG on October 29, 2013, 01:19:32 pm
From an email dated 26th October relating to what I can only assume was Chritoph's phone call:

he asked me to check out some shots he's posted, so I switched onto the site but didn't log in, which meant I couldn't see the images. However, I did do a bit of reading, and discovered that somebody had stared a thread about my 'holiday' and whether I was okay or not... that sort of surprised me and gave me an instant guilt complex. But, I still didn't log in and rejoin.

Rob is happy.  Happy has been a somewhat alien concept for Rob since the passing of his beloved.  I'd suggest that his desires be foremost and that his decision to absent himself be respected.


Cheers,

W
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 29, 2013, 01:23:46 pm
Sure - but greetings and the expression of people missing him still is something good I think.
He'll overcome his guilt complex and still enjoy seeing whats the spontaneous reactions of people towards him taking this break of unknown and possibly infinite duration.

Cheers
~Chris
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: RSL on October 29, 2013, 01:25:37 pm
I just sent Rob an email with a link to this thread and suggested he check it to see how much he's missed. Hope he'll do it.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Manoli on October 29, 2013, 01:32:01 pm
Rob is happy.  Happy has been a somewhat alien concept for Rob since the passing of his beloved.  I'd suggest that his desires be foremost and that his decision to absent himself be respected.

Absolutely, and I'm confident that everyone here on LuLa wishes him nothing but the best, I certainly do.

Now on a more frivolous note,

He'll overcome his guilt complex and still enjoy seeing whats the spontaneous reactions of people towards him taking this break of unknown and possibly infinite duration.

It's called AWOL !
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 29, 2013, 01:39:35 pm
Absolutely, and I'm confident that everyone here on LuLa wishes him nothing but the best, I certainly do.

Now on a more frivolous note,

It's called AWOL !

I think I'll give him a new nick: Rob "Awol" Campbell.
(I hope you won't cancel our appointment when reading this Awol erm .. Rob  :D )
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Manoli on October 29, 2013, 02:44:54 pm
I agree with much he says, violently disagree with some he says, but above all miss him saying it here.

+1
( Just for you Rob, and not because I know you dislike +1's)
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on October 29, 2013, 03:13:13 pm
... I agree with much he says, violently disagree with some he says, but above all miss him saying it here.

+1

Minus the 'violently' part ;)
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Rocco Penny on October 30, 2013, 07:33:42 am
hahaha
I once noticed how Rob would post to a thread and it would almost certainly garner one to two thousand hits.
When he is in rare form,
his threads get in excess of ten thousand views.
When someone simply misses the man,
the thread expressing the down in the mouth feeling we all get when he dissappears in his daliances,
last time he took a break I was adrift-
Rob C,
phone home!...
ps,
smiling ear to ear right now knowing he's having "the time of his life"
I hope it's true!!
Need more music,
am listening to jazz!
ugh,,,
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Rob C on October 30, 2013, 03:01:37 pm
Hi folks,

First, let me say thank you to Manoli for starting this thread and, when I finally got round to finding and reading it, also giving me a bit of a conscience about sudden departures! Others’ additional expressions of regret at my ‘AWOL’ do surely make me feel that this site has, indeed, quite a bit of a family underneath it all.

Thing is, I’ve felt poster-driven to quitting LuLa twice before and both times I eventually managed to get over it and back into circulation again. Unfortunately, in the best tradition of the Hydra-headed monsters of yesteryear, as soon as one gets chopped off another springs up to replace it, and that gets somewhat tiresome for me, as much as it probably was for the Greeks, to say the very least, and as politely as one can. And no, it isn’t simply pique nor is it some kind of polling gesture on my part. The raw - if mundane - truth is that I’ve had two heart ‘adventures’ already and despite myself, I do take what’s written here on the forum as seriously as I do that which I contribute from my end. Consequently, I tend, slowly, to get wound up, and after some time I feel it’s either I get the hell out or I allow it to take me out instead. I just don’t have the resilience anymore.

You see, admitting this brings its own difficulty: perhaps some might decide to treat me with kid gloves, and that’s of no use to anyone, least of all to myself. If you want to play, you have to play as the game is, and accept whatever reaction you create towards yourself. It would be unbearable to imagine being given some kind of ‘special’ treatment out of fear of causing health harm. It would be absolutely transparent and embarrassing to all concerned.

A couple of days or so ago I had a look at the list of threads on Coffee; I realised that little there was of genuine interest to me. I then wondered why and how I’d managed to ring up so many posts to my account, and the unavoidable conclusion that I came up with was that I had little else to do. And that was simply wrong: I have a hell of a lot to do, starting with keeping the property in decent shape, right from first principles such as using the vacuum cleaner now and again! This year, I don’t think I even varnished the acres of shutters that seem to grow mentally more huge and intimidating every year in spring though in real terms they obviously remain exactly the same as ever; the varnishing is okay - masks or not you get pleasantly high doing it anyway, it’s the preparatory work that’s the drag. Then there’s the photography. I found I was doing not a lot. So, all in all, scribbling had taken over at the cost of pretty much everything else, and become an easy way out of other duties.

Actually, I really dislike arguments. Especially do I dislike arguments that I know will never resolve themselves in any reasonable way because their very subject matter permits of no clear resolution, and the various factions often have no interest in resolving anything beyond having the final bark. It’s so damned pointless, isn’t it?

Photography is indeed a sort of common experience shared by those who do it; however, the differences in mindset between the pros and ams is usually pretty huge. I write mindset and not ability, because outwith the realm of specialized branches of photography, it’s pretty much the same challenge to everyone who takes part in it. One of the differences is that the pro usually realises that there is a basic reality behind it all, that some people have what it takes where others do not (and that isn’t a factor that always governs commercial success, either, which is the product of many other factors, many of which lie quite beyond the individual’s control). That being so, much of the chat about critiques, how-to books, camera and/or lens comparisons, fanboyism, etc. etc. leave me perplexed and wondering if some people still really do believe they can buy a magic bullet.

There is also the factor of generations. After a few years of teaching myself the basics and buying some reasonable stuff, I began as a trainee professional in an industrial photo-unit in 1960, spending a helluva lot of time printing other photographers’ work, which was a fantastic learning experience that taught me so much that I didn’t even know was there to be learned. I had the wonderful opportunity of working in a situation where cost was not a factor: you printed until it was right, and then, when you understood the print, made maybe fifty more, exactly the same, by hand. And that took a lot of experience mileage. How long does it take to learn how to make a reasonable digital image for the web?

When, years later came digital, I was more or less ready to stop, if only because much of what I did was being crushed by political correctness. Stock, another important fact of life, also began to become more expensive to supply than it was capable of earning. Some studios I knew vanished from the face of the Earth, as did some of London’s biggest labs. In other words, for a large number of us, it was an industry in accelerating decline. As I could afford to do it, and probably had little real option, I let it all drift away and mostly went sailing with friends. But, that left a bloody big hole: I still loved photography.

So as a result, I began to frequent the BJP site of the day and met several of the guys with whom I hope I am still friends here, today. However, even that haven was not to last and a few morons ruined it for everyone else; most of us who cared enough walked and met up elsewhere. But, as I mentioned, it is also a generation thing: I grew up in the era of Nikon F and Hasselblad 500C, where the equipment was simple, lasted forever, and other than with the ‘blad, you had to try really hard if you wanted to jam it! And that’s all there was to it. Digital, on the other hand, strikes me still as at its best when I disable every goddamn useless function that I can. You see the cultural divide appearing here between my generation and all the young turks of today?

As a result, I feel that I can’t quite get the amateur thing, can’t understand why people in both camps agonize over not having the latest number of pixels popping out of their camera, and I dislike the current look of much of the model work that I see anywhere. I like skin (hell, I’m permanently wrapped in it!), I do not have a plastics fetish any more than I do a love for fake breasts that for me achieve the perfect opposite of the charm that they are supposed to exude: they make women look like ludicrous whores. Wonderful possibility for serious surgical needs, but a travesty for modelling. IMO. The result, not of the plastic but of the thinking, is that I hardly fit into either the pro or am worlds of today, so what the hell have I to write about here that I have not already repeated perhaps once or twice too often already? If I fear boring myself, what must I be doing to other people?

However, I do love photographs and enjoy looking at most of them, which is balanced in some odd way by a desire to show my own though I fail to find charm in reading suggested ‘improvements’ which is almost never more than the art of second-guessing and an attempt to impose one’s own visual ideas and concepts upon another’s mind, something I fear is very dangerous for the newer photographer who, I believe, should be allowed to follow his own nose all the way. How else to be yourself? You can’t be anyone else, so don’t waste time trying; sheep live hellish lives: not only do they get fleeced, they even get eaten. So rather than asking for the opinions of people who probably know as little about aesthetics as anyone else, I feel neophytes should just read more and look at great photographers’ websites, of which there is legion. They’ll soon learn personal likes and dislikes and where they think they might feel most comfortable whilst being themselves. All the greats did exactly that: they invented and developed themselves, some several times over.

Well, I see that despite myself I have sat here so long writing this that I have developed numb legs. I shall be happy to rejoin the bus, but I think I shall probably find that I keep my mouth fairly closed.

However it turns out, thank you for caring.

Rob C


Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on October 30, 2013, 05:06:06 pm
Rob, I love you and I am looking forward to meet you end of the year.
Best and most touching post I was reading here in ages.
A hearty welcome back!

Cheers
~Chris
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Pete_G on October 30, 2013, 05:34:21 pm
Rob,

I don't agree with some things you say, we've crossed swords once or twice, especially politically, but I do sympathise with your "megapost", very much so.

Don't worry about repeating yourself and being boring, you're not and we're all doing that anyway.

It's good to have you back, you irascible old s*d.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: BernardLanguillier on October 31, 2013, 05:13:54 am
Welcome back Rob!

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Jim Pascoe on October 31, 2013, 06:50:11 am
Haha - life gets back to normal!  Welcome back.

Jim
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: mezzoduomo on October 31, 2013, 09:31:54 am
.....though I fail to find charm in reading suggested ‘improvements’ which is almost never more than the art of second-guessing and an attempt to impose one’s own visual ideas and concepts upon another’s mind, something I fear is very dangerous for the newer photographer who, I believe, should be allowed to follow his own nose all the way. How else to be yourself? You can’t be anyone else, so don’t waste time trying......

Rob C

+1 Sir, in a big way.
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: RSL on October 31, 2013, 10:11:17 am
See, Rob! What'd I tell 'ya?

In any case, it's great to see you back. Stay out of the politics forum (also called "The Coffee Corner") and all will be well. I'll try to do the same thing. Yeah! Sure!
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Rob C on October 31, 2013, 11:01:07 am
hahaha
I once noticed how Rob would post to a thread and it would almost certainly garner one to two thousand hits.
When he is in rare form,
his threads get in excess of ten thousand views.
When someone simply misses the man,
the thread expressing the down in the mouth feeling we all get when he dissappears in his daliances,
last time he took a break I was adrift-
Rob C,
phone home!...
ps,
smiling ear to ear right now knowing he's having "the time of his life"
I hope it's true!!
Need more music,
am listening to jazz!
ugh,,,


Jazz ain't so bad - it's the base for everything else.

Try this guy for R'n'R/Boogie Woogie mixture of styles:

http://youtu.be/lANsRaUrst0

Rob C

Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: petermfiore on October 31, 2013, 04:57:29 pm
Rob,
  Your Back.......... :)



Peter
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on October 31, 2013, 06:25:31 pm
Rob,
  Your Back.......... :)



Peter
Yes he is. Over on "Without Prejudice 2" we find he's been on Coke.   :D

Eric
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Rocco Penny on October 31, 2013, 07:30:59 pm
saw the debbie harry riff,
who remembers any of her bandmates?
noticed a girl the same way today rob,
she reminded me of one of the herd of deer I like to harass
regal in her postures, almost beyond understanding-
proud for prides sake-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGAyrdiYXyk
this is as near the rock sound as I can get after a loud dang weekend last-
too much volume you know?
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Rob C on November 02, 2013, 01:30:56 pm
saw the debbie harry riff,
who remembers any of her bandmates?
noticed a girl the same way today rob,
she reminded me of one of the herd of deer I like to harass
regal in her postures, almost beyond understanding-
proud for prides sake-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGAyrdiYXyk
this is as near the rock sound as I can get after a loud dang weekend last-
too much volume you know?



Rocco -

I like oldies - as if you had not guessed!

http://youtu.be/GYBxCgYNcv0

Rob C
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: degrub on November 02, 2013, 10:37:44 pm
Espresso to start the day  ;)

http://youtu.be/FoOxOVKL3UI
Frank
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Rocco Penny on November 03, 2013, 10:11:23 am
Sleepy is my friend Steve's favorite axeman
I watched him a few times, he is good,
but my ears prefer the sounds of screeching blue jays and yippling coyotes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvymfWOAi-o
Title: Re: Rob C - where are you ?
Post by: Rob C on November 04, 2013, 11:05:00 am
Sleepy is my friend Steve's favorite axeman
I watched him a few times, he is good,
but my ears prefer the sounds of screeching blue jays and yippling coyotes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvymfWOAi-o


And this is what you also write when, as I hear, you co-write Johnnie B. Goode and get zilch for your contributions!

Hard, hard rain.

Rob C

http://youtu.be/MMSlyQd3ieE