Membership
Membership Requirements
- An interest in photography
- A willingness to carry heavy loads long distances in terrible weather to (maybe) make a single exposure
- A large, unwieldy camera
- A disposition to hang out with others as crazy as you are
(We are willing to waive the first three requirements.)
If you attend Asylum outings it is also a good idea to like food!
The Asylum does not charge membership fees or dues. All outings are completely optional (in fact the whole things is completely optional). We now have two ways to communicate with other Asylum inmates. The first is our mailing list and the second is our forum. Both require registration (absolutely free and required to foil spammers) but no other commitment from you!
Forum Information
There is a link to the forum on the menu. Visitors can view the public areas of the forum including some of the gallery areas. Only members can make posts and access the entire forum including additional galleries. Feel free to take a look.
For full access to the forum you must register. Registration is completely free and is simply a precaution to prevent spammer, which happened when we had an open forum. You simply click the "Registration" link on the forum and fill out the information. Your registration has to be activated by an administrator and that usually takes less than 24 hours. Once your account has been activated you can read and post to the entire forum.
Please note: registration is free and we don't share your information with anyone. You will not be spammed as a result of joining the forum.
Mailing List Information
Our mailing list actually pre-dates the forum and for years was our primary method of communication in the group. The forum has taken over that role but the mailing list can still be a useful tool.
What is a mailing list? Basically it is an email reflector, any email you send to the list will be forwarded to everyone else on the list. Conversely you will receive emails sent to the list by any other member.
Traffic is generally very light, amounting to fewer than a dozen emails per week in most cases. Your inbox won't be inundated by emails from the list. Traffic may pick up a bit the week before an outing or if something truly noteworthy happens in the world of photography that would likely affect large format users.
How to Subscribe to the List
You can subscribe by sending an email with the words "subscribe midwestlf" in the body of the message. It is important that you send the email from the account you will use to post and receive messages. If you want to receive any messages from the list on your home email account then you must send the subscribe message from that account.