RE: [Leica] I.R. Collector

[Jeremy Kime <jeremy.kime@bbc.co.uk>]

Mike,
'I am Weasel' was v. enjoyable the one time I saw it.
I share your experience with photography and cameras. I too would love to
'find my way back to the garden'. (Joni Mitchell, 'Woodstock')

I sometimes wonder (and I'm sure its been mooted before) that we can spend
far too much time here, on the LUG, instead of making pictures.

Do you think that this was the problem that the 'rich man' had when he
contemplated going to heaven? He couldn't bear to get rid of all his
material wealth so that he could really free himself up to enjoy life?
We can't bear to get rid of 95% of our camera gear to enjoy photography once
again?
Thankfully, its probably not that bad for us but exaggerations are often
made to prove the point you understand...

best regards,

Jem
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Mike Dembinski [SMTP:mdembin@it.com.pl]
> 
> Self-deprecating title of this thread will be understood only by fans of
> Hanna Barbera's excellent 'I Am Weasel' cartoons.
> 
> A few weeks ago, a brave soul (didn't archive so forgot who), stated that
> many of us like cameras more than they like photography.
> 
> Wow. I thought about that for a while. Indeed a profound observation. This
> would explain why I spend more time looking through the small ads in
> photography mags than reading technique articles or looking at portfolios.
> Why I'd spend lunchtimes looking at camera store windows rather than
> photographing passers-by on city streets or visiting galleries. Why I
> spend
> Sunday mornings at the Gielda Fotograficzna rather than snapping the
> characters in Warsaw's many churches. Cameras and photography? This
> posting
> made me search my soul. A 60%/40% ratio. Once it was less. Happy with a
> single M2 body and 35mm Summicron-M, doing only black and white, home
> darkroom, relative poverty. Today I have cameras and lenses everywhere,
> want
> more more more of them, and the darkroom has long become the nursery. I do
> only C-41 snaps (roll or two a week), processed at the local Kodak
> Express.
> 
> I am afflicted by something that also gets to golfers and anglers - better
> results through better kit. Trying to stop this madness I've decided to
> limit myself to cheap Soviet equipment, but even here I've begun seeking
> out
> faster lenses, rarer bodies etc.
> 
> Yesterday my 5-year old daughter asked me to show her my Kiev-4a (current
> toy). Soon we got onto the Leica M6. Then my Canon F-1.
> 
> The Canon she drooled over. 'What else does it do?' I took off the
> pentaprism, then the focusing screen, showed her the mirror box, opened
> the
> back, explained what the controls do. 'I like this more than those two
> (the
> R/Fs)' Have you got another interesting camera?' I took my Exakta Varex
> 11a
> out of the display cabinet. 'Look at the way you use the left hand to wind
> on and the right to trigger the shutter and stop down the lens'. Obvious
> 5-year old interest. 'Does the top come off?' Opened up the vertical
> finder
> and its magnifier. 'The image is the other way round... do you see? and
> look, you can put on a pentaprism just like the one from the Canon...'
> What
> else does it do?' 'Look,' I said, opening up the back. 'Here's a little
> knife, when you unscrew this knob, which comes down and separates exposed
> film from what's left in the cassette... and look at the shutter speed
> dial
> - it gives you 'B' which works like this, and 'T' which works like
> this...'
> I could see as deep an appreciation of the Varex as you could get from a
> child this age.
> 
> 'Dad, I like the Exakta best. Then the Canon. Have you anything else?' Got
> down my battered FM2. 'What does it do?' Not much. 'Top doesn't come off?'
> 'Nope.' 'Don't like it then.'
> 
> I feel my daughter has inherited my rather sad fascination with
> photographic
> equipment.... One day she will start to value optical quality as well as
> the
> 'toy factor'.
> 
> I feel I must get that darkroom back - for the sake of my sanity!!
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>