Re: [Leica] Re: Passport

[Walter S Delesandri <walt@jove.acs.unt.edu>]

Mark, thanks for the post.
Well, I love seeing those photos, too, but the stigma DOES exist...
I didn't say that I had any guilt or ill feelings about using
Leica (I use Nikon, too)....I just know what I've heard.....

My neighbors drive late model cars worth THREE times the value 
of my used bodies and lenses, but they "need" that 20K minivan....
Hell, my truck is MUCH older than my "old" Leicas....
But yet my neighbor whistles and rolls his eyes when he sees 
my Leicas (his golf clubs cost as much, and he's a schoolteacher!!)

I never understood the mindset that a couple with one kid
"needs" a couple of 20K cars to drive around town, or a 
$200K 4 bedroom house to live in (mine cost $39K, and is 
plenty nice), but can't possibly "afford" a decent camera 
that'll last FIVE TIMES as long as the car!!

>BUT< .......I at least owe NOTHING except my $351 house payment (!!!)
That's right, no car payment, credits cards paid on the first 
of each month, cash in pocket for cameras/radios.....

But the "stigma" is real......

Thanks again, 
Walt

On
Sun,
24 Jan 1999, Mark Rabiner wrote:

> Walter S Delesandri wrote:
> > 
> > Don't know where in the hell you got that information....among
> > non-photographers, Leica is unknown (exc. oldsters)...among
> > photographers it is known as an EXTREMELY elitist product...
> > (the BEST or a useless status symbol depending on the person's
> > viewpoint)...but never "just another product"......you either
> > get praise or contempt for owning/using Leica from other
> > photographers, depending on the status of the bug up their ass
> > that day.....
> > 
> > Walt
> snip
> > 
> An image comes to my mind of a working war photographer with several M's
> around his torso. I think I saw in in a American Photographer or maybe
> is was the French about five years back. It resolved any elitist guilt I
> might have had about getting into Leica.
> Mark Rabiner
>