[Leica] Re:getting close

[jose luis gonzalez <jlg@redestb.es>]

>The funniest incident happened a day or two after I'd got the lens, I wa=
s on =

the seafront at Skegness, a small seaside town in Eastern England and
saw a =

fight between some 'bovver boys' and the police. I put the camera to my
eye =

and ran towards the fight, anxious to be ready to fire the shutter as
soon =

as the composition was right. I got there, took a couple of photos of
the =

three policemen restraining three lads and then put the camera down, I =

nearly jumped out of my skin! I was only two feet away from them all!
The =

phrase, 'Get in close' comes to mind, but boy, does that photo have
impact!
Jem

This story has remind me of something that happened  to me 25 years ago.
I was shooting a story on a Safari Park, I was allowed to roam with my
car ( at that moment a tiny Fiat 500, one of the smallest cars ever
built) out of the marked roads, but I also was warned no to get out of
the car. Of course I did get out for the sake of better compositions. =

The bad part came when I was shooting a wood fence with a lodge in the
background at rigth and a small lake also at the background at left, the
fence crossed in diagonal from fore to background, in all I had a fairly
good composition. I was looking through the camera when I saw two adult
rhinos coming at good pace from the left background close to the lake,
they then turned rigth and began coming in my direction, I thougth"
rigth I=B4ll wait till they come close enough to be a important part of
the image" so I did, when they reached the adequated size a took the
shot.But with the thrill I forgot that I was using a 18 mm when I took
the camera  off my eye  I found the two beast very very close to me and
coming closer. I swiftly dove into the car ( not a easy task due to the
small size of the car and that I=B4m a big guy ) I did just in time to
close the door but not enough to close the window. One of them went to
the rigth of the car and the other to the left, there I was in the
middle of two beast that were each more than double the size of car, I
stood still , the male came to my window to sniff me, I was petrified,
suddenly the thing broke loose the wind seal  followed  by the biggest
pee that I=B4ve ever seen, ( in the state I was,the least that I needed
was " motivation " ) after the "act" both left leaving me in a cold
sweat.I started the car and drove to the park entrance, there the owner
was waiting me with a jug of beer but filled up with scotch ( he has
been watching the scene with binos and rigthly guessed that I=B4d need a
good shot after the encounter in the wet phase.( I was very fortunate
that it had the nose on my window and not the opposite side )
A few months later one of them had to be removed from the park because
it atacked one of the warden's car

so, get close, but beware of anything wider that 50 mm !!


Regards
Jose Luis