Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/07/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]- ---------- > From: Dave Munroe <dmunroe@hpvclmun.vcd.hp.com> > I don't exactly "need" another camera right now -- I've got plenty, so it's probably > best to wait for that pristine M4 to eventually show up. > Be careful - If it's too pretty, you may be tempted to "baby" it or forgo using it altogether! When yearning for my own Leica long ago, I loved to watch from my humble position as a studio assistant at how the photojournalists respectfully tossed their Leica's around. It made me think of my wrenches and socket sets back home - great tools that got greasy and scratched a bit as they faithfully did the job in my hands. Then I would appreciatively clean and store them for the next project. Leica's can be like that. When I got my M6 about four years ago, one of the first things I did was take it out on a rainy day to photograph rhododendrons and gravestones. It got almost as wet as I did and recorded some wonderfully saturated colors against the grays. Looking back, it was as tho my M6 and I were coming to terms at the beginning of a long relationship. Kind of a bonding experience; "I won't make you do anything I wouldn't suffer myself, so don't expect to be coddled." One of life's subtle pleasures is the thoughtful grooming of lenses and M bodies at the end of a day of photography: respecting the amazing tool that I hardly thought about during the shooting because of its transparency to my eyes and hands; sorting the jumble of lenses back into their standard places in the case; chamois-clothing the finger prints out of finder windows; running the shutter thru all the speeds ostensibly to keep them loose, but mostly just to hear that delicious sound just for the sound's sake. Yes, I have my "collectibles", mostly from the screw mount era, but I don't baby my M's. So get something with scratches, even a dent or two. Then chance a few more by pushing, risking, and probing the limits until you know that your Leica has given you something rare and wonderful. You see. Gary Todoroff