How did it start?

[fredjeang]

Hi,
I don't know if that topic will interests you, here I go.

According to the founder of this website, Michael Reichmann, Lu-La will be updated soon with new features, style etc...
So this site the way we all know it and has always been will soon be transformed.

I've known Lu-La about 5 years ago, but of course it is older.
I was asking myself this simple question: How did all that adventure started?
It would be nice to have some Michael or Chris comments of course, but also the first users.

Are there first users, that knew the Lu-La from the very beginning and have been involved here, that would give us their comments?
How was it?
Did it changed a lot?
How was the forum at the beginning?
etc...
What are your memories of the first years?

Nostalgia before the date? Just memories I guess.

Thank you for the repplies.

Cheers.

[Rob C]

Looking back, it seems I first posted in January of 2005 - I thought it was further back than that.

I have never felt myself particularly adept at computer stuff, but can't say that I ever really felt uncomfortable with the way that LuLa functions, though there are probably bits and pieces of it that I have not used, either because I'm not aware that they exist or have never felt a need for them and, consequently, never asked advice about them.

Perhaps what five years does provide is a sort of personal image of the site: I see it as being one particular thing, whereas it is probably many more such different things to everyone else.

What I think is quite pleasing is that it doesn't just live photography - enough that I think that I do - and there is room for many different directions for conversations to develop and explore. I really do hope nothing gets lost during and after any transition.

What I have noticed, is that my typing is really deteriorating. I seem to hit so many wrong keys all the time that it takes forever to post the simplest of posts. My spelling seems to be getting more vague too and I spend much time trying to correct it. Frankly, I fear it might be my eyes. Typing in the box where one types, I miss errors; when I click onto Preview Post, they jump out at me. But, even then, I miss some. Frustration is bad for the health.

Rob C

[thewanderer]

i bought my first canon d30 based on recommendations from MR.  He had posted a review of it.  I sent him a note and he sent a cd with a raw file for me to print of a zoo tiger file he had taken with it and i was hooked. (that was many thousands of dollars ago).   I sent him a check a  check for his time and he gave it to his charity. That was what seemed along time ago.  I used that camera right after 9-11 so i would guess my first readings, postings would have been sometime before then.  Always seems to be a site of pretty good reason, I always refer to the reviews for purchasing decisions.  Always a steady place to come for information.

[Tim Gray]

I've been here pretty well from the beginning. About 2000 or 2001, certainly longer than my 2002 profile indicates since during one of the early restructures we ended up with newly initialized join dates.   I remember when the Canon D30 was the "big thing" (at prints up to 8x10 it rivals film - and all the controversy that that comment stirred up) and the "pro" digital cameras were Canon/Kodak hybrids. In the early days when Michael critiqued submissions he did 2 of mine.  Anyone remember the furor when the fellow (Dhys Reid???) who had submitted a great shot of Lake Miniwanka noted later that he had "dropped" in a more dramatic sky?!  I remember the very first video journals and Michael's early workshops.  Those days were certainly exciting, but so are the current times.

[DarkPenguin]

I thought I was here before 2005.  I know there was a profile change at one point.

Anyway, back in those heady early days many years ago LLVJ 19 had already been out since the Carter administration and I joined to ask when to expect LLVJ 20.  Some day... Some day...

Not nearly as interesting these days.  Every digital camera I own is over a year old.  (Wow!)  They work.  I own too many lenses.  I'm not constantly switching raw converters.  Things are just more sedate.  Heck, the most interesting equipment purchase I've made in a while was a $28 ($37 shipped) Minolta MD to m43 converter.  (To which I mounted a minolta 50mm f1.7 that is so bad that a self respecting monkey wouldn't even bother to fling it at a school group.  Still, f1.7 for $28.  Woo!)

Meanwhile I believe this is MR's last camera ...



To be upgraded as soon a Orion is ready to roll....

[wolfnowl]

Well, under my picture it says I've been here since 2005, but since my member number is 1,366, I know I've been around a lot longer than that.  Before Michael's first digital camera was reviewed, that's for sure.

How has the site changed?  Other than getting much bigger as more and more information has been added?  In some ways a lot, in other ways not so much.  New people have come in, old ones have left.  The entire world of photography has changed in that time.  Personal printers showed up, went from four inks to six to ?, got bigger and much better.  Cameras have changed a lot.

People here still support each other, still critique each other, and still argue with each other.

Life goes on.

Mike.

[francois]

I've been here pretty well from the beginning. About 2000 or 2001, certainly longer than my 2002 profile indicates since during one of the early restructures we ended up with newly initialized join dates.   I remember when the Canon D30 was the "big thing" (at prints up to 8x10 it rivals film - and all the controversy that that comment stirred up) and the "pro" digital cameras were Canon/Kodak hybrids. In the early days when Michael critiqued submissions he did 2 of mine.  Anyone remember the furor when the fellow (Dhys Reid???) who had submitted a great shot of Lake Miniwanka noted later that he had "dropped" in a more dramatic sky?!  I remember the very first video journals and Michael's early workshops.  Those days were certainly exciting, but so are the current times.

Tim,
I vaguely remember the "dropped sky" affair... I must have been here very early, probably before 2000 and I still remember the old forum and the shocking D30 review!

[Rob C]

Meanwhile I believe this is MR's last camera ...

That's a pretty cheap 'n' clumsy looking lens cap!

Rob C

[Josh-H]

That's a pretty cheap 'n' clumsy looking lens cap!

Rob C

I was just pondering the implications of shooting tethered!  

[fredjeang]

Isn't it amazing that talking about the D30 seems from the dinausors age, and in fact it is just few years ago?

[michael]

If anyone wants to go further down memory lane, this link will take you to every What's New  since May, 1999. Some links are bound to be broken, and some pages look a bit strange, but it's all there.

As for changes to the site, get ready. They're coming soon. I don't think that many people will be disappointed.

Michael

[fredjeang]

Thanks Michael.
This link is incredible. Highly recomended.

Ps: As for the new site, I just have one wish: That you get rid off the yellow frame on the pics.
Actually, there are 2 frame lines on some, red and yellow...a tribute after Michael's last visit in Spain?  

[framah]

Wow!! I went and checked my info and my member # is 1,609 and it says I have been a member since Oct, 03 but I guess it might be earlier than that seeing as how Michael didn't join his own site till Aug, 02 and his member # is 12,955!!    

Truth in statistics, eh?  

[francois]

Wow!! I went and checked my info and my member # is 1,609 and it says I have been a member since Oct, 03 but I guess it might be earlier than that seeing as how Michael didn't join his own site till Aug, 02 and his member # is 12,955!!    

Truth in statistics, eh?

The forum changed that's why Michael and some other "old" members joined in 2002 only!

[Ben Rubinstein]

MR was the reason I bought my first DSLR, the D60. Although it didn't last long before being replaced with the 10D, he was also responsible for me buying the 1Ds original. My purchase of the 20D, two 5D's and now 1Ds mkIII were all my own fault however and I won't bill him for those....  

[Paul Sumi]

I got here sometime around 2001, possibly a little earlier.  At least, MR did a critique of one of my landscape photos in July of that year:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/critiques/july-2001.shtml

What Michael, LuLa and the community of photographers here did was to rekindle my interest in serious photography, which had languished for some years.  It's been a great ride since then and I'm looking forward to see what happens next.

Paul

[John Camp]

I don't think the join dates or the member numbers mean much anymore; I'm shown as 1364 at May '04, but the Kodak DSLRs came out in '02, and I was here before that...and bought two of them, after long discussions here. The most intense and interesting controversy I remember here was when Michael did a digital vs. film analysis in an effort to tell whether digital had surpassed film...I think the DSLRs were about 6mp at the time...probably the D1x and the Canon equivalent. If I remember correctly, the analysis pictures were taken near a lake, and cattails were involved. The conclusion was, "maybe," and the discussion was heated. I was shooting F5s at the time, and had been crawling through middle eastern museums, photographing archaeological artifacts through glass (no lights allowed) and remember thinking that photography couldn't get much better than Fuji 1600, no matter what people said about digital...

Before 2000, I'd gone from an F3 to an F4 to an F5, mostly bought early in their release periods, after moving to Nikon from Pentax, and it seems like I had each of those cameras forever. Like eight or ten years. I bet I've had twenty cameras since 2000...2 Kodaks, 2 D1x, 2 D2x, a D3 and a D300, Leica M8, and now three Panasonic 4/3 bodies, plus any number of P&Ss, all bought after intense online research, much of it here.

I'll be interested to see what the new forum brings.

JC

[Rob C]

Isn't it amazing that talking about the D30 seems from the dinausors age, and in fact it is just few years ago?

And yet, taking about an M6 feels now! Does anyone speak of M7s?

Rob C

[Rob C]

Before 2000, I'd gone from an F3 to an F4 to an F5, mostly bought early in their release periods, after moving to Nikon from Pentax, and it seems like I had each of those cameras forever. Like eight or ten years. I bet I've had twenty cameras since 2000...2 Kodaks, 2 D1x, 2 D2x, a D3 and a D300, Leica M8, and now three Panasonic 4/3 bodies, plus any number of P&Ss, all bought after intense online research, much of it here.

I'll be interested to see what the new forum brings.

JC

I think that filmic experience is applicable to anyone who worked at the time. Those cameras lasted and lasted and nobody dreamed of replacing them unless they failed in old age. However, unlike your experience, I disliked the self-loading concept so much (and found it hopeless in practice) that I went backwards from the F4s to the F3, which I still have. I was out of pro life more or less as digital became the thing; I resisted buying anything until I bought the D200 and now the D700. I sort of wish I'd waited until the advent of FF, though, even if some friends wish they had also hung on to cropped format as well as getting into FF. I now have these three bodies and only one will get used again - I think.

Rob C

[Colorwave]

As for changes to the site, get ready. They're coming soon. I don't think that many people will be disappointed.
Michael

Michael-
If Adobe can make an announcement that tells us when they are going to be making an announcement about CS5, could we pry just a wee bit more specificity out of you?  Days, weeks, months?  How about rolling out the new design an hour after Adobe's announcement tomorrow to steal all of their thunder?  A tweak to the green bar at the top and a new font might not be quite enough to drown out the din, but you have hinted at a little more than that . . .
Content aware forum posts perhaps?  An auto Schewe feature?