Re: Roll Call

["Juan F. Sanz Cervera" <Juan.F.Sanz@uv.es>]

Juan F. Sanz Cervera
Born in Bu=F1ol (Valencia, Spain) in 1960
Married to Laura, a US citizen, since 1989
3yr old daughter, Julia

I am an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Valencia,
Spain. My research field is Organic Chemistry in general, and biosynthetic
pathways of secondary metabolites in particular. I have been a post-doc in
Berlin, FRG, and a Visiting Scholar four times at Colorado State
University, Fort Collins, Colorado.

My father introduced me to Photography in an indirect way. When I was
little, he used to take beautiful B&W family pictures with a no-name
Spanish, medium format camera. I remember admiring those photographs. The
enlargments were are always small, so the prints were satisfactory. He
later bought another Spanish camera (called a Werlisa: a bad copy of the
Kodak Retinas of the 50s) and switched to 35mm color prints. That was the
end of the family album :-) The quality of the color plus the horrible lens
in the camera made my father forget about those family photographs. Anyway,
I always longed to experiment with B&W and as soon as I collected enough
money, when I was 17 or 18 I bought my first camera, an Olympus OM-2n. I
took a lot of pictures and learnt quite a bit with that camera  and the
50mm lens. Later, I bought more lenses, bought my first medium format
camera (actually two Pentacon Six TL bought in Berlin, right before the
fall of the wall). Then I sold the Pentacons, bought some Hasselblad
equipment, sold it later... I have tried many, many different cameras over
the years, but my favorite cameras are the M Leicas for 35mm and the TLR
Rolleiflexes for MF. Two years ago I got into large format (Linhof,
Tachihara, Graphics), and I love it. However, I find it difficult to get
enough time to take the photographs. When I have some spare time, I usually
go out with my wife and daughter, and they hate waiting 20 minutes for me
to take a photograph... :-)

For Leica M I now have two 35/2 lenses (first and last version), two 50/2
lenses (rigid and fourth version), a late 90/2, and a 90/2.8 Elmarit,
black. I use the 50 and 35 lenses the most, and use the 90 very little. I
know what you must be thinking: that I have the lenses duplicated. The
problem is that they are all very different in character (newer lenses are
much more contrasty, snappier), and I still have to make up my mind and
sell the newer lenses... :-)  I also have an M6 (chrome, recently bought
for LUG member Don Bledsoe, the nicest person!), and a late M3.

I have exhibited my photographs only locally, twice, and only once I sold a
12x16" photograph to a Briton for the unbelievable sum of 2,500 pesetas
(ca. US $17) in 1986. The problem here is that the photographs I like are
not marketable (or at least they are not marketable without putting a lot
of time and effort into it, which I am not willing to do now), so I decided
some time ago to renounce to the business part and concentrate on the
pleasure I get from all this as a hobby. I also won some awards in some
minor photo contests, but the whole experience was not very positive or
encouraging: the kind of images that win those contests don't interest me a
bit, so I stopped submitting images.

The photography I like to do is always in B&W, and of course I process
everything myself. I admire some color photographers, but for me I just
don't like the loss of control involved in color photography (contrast,
manipulation) or the time involved in getting that control.=20

My only films in the last five years: Kodak TMX and TMY, usually processed
with TMax developer, 1+9 (rotary processor).

My favorite photogarphers (not necessarily in this order): Walker Evans,
Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Man Ray, Eisenstaedt, Cartier-Bresson, Frank
Capa, Eugene Smith, Kertesz, Robert Frank, Stieglitz, Elliott Porter, and
many more whose names I don't remember right now (I am a disaster for
names! :-)

Regards,

	- Juan




                   =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
                                     Juan F. Sanz Cervera
                             Associate Professor of Chemistry
                            Departamento de Quimica Organica
                              Universidad de Valencia, Spain
                                 MAILTO:Juan.F.Sanz@uv.es   =20
                    Photo gallery: http://www.uv.es/~jsanz/photo1.htm
                   =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D