[Leica] My Black M2 - A Neglected Life

["Steve LeHuray" <icommag@toad.net>]

    Late last weekend I was rummaging around through some cardboard boxes
that were left unpacked in my office from more than a year ago. And, lo 'n
behold, there was a box of some of my old negs and contact sheets from many
years ago. For your information I almost never file anything, everything
goes on a pile and eventually will end up in a cardboard box. So, I got out
the lightbox and my super lupe, a Nikor 85mm and started to sort through
them, when, to my surprise, I came across 1 contact sheet from an assignment
(actually 2 assignments, one in the morning the other in the afternoon) in
1986 or '87. But let me back up a day to the beginning.
    I remember it was the spring of '86 or '87 and I was over in Washington
having a business lunch and after the lunch was over, walking back to the
parking lot I passed a camera store. Now I want you all to know that I
almost never go into a camera store, not even to buy film, always buy my
film at the super market, they always have whatever I want and cheaper too.
So anyway I had this assignment the next day and had been thinking about a
new camera. My two trusty F's worked fine but.......So I found the used
camera case which was filled with hundreds of bodies and lenses of every
description. "We have this nice F2." said the salesman. "F what?" said I.
Thats how often I buy camera gear and I hate to tell you that I don't read
Photo magazines. So I told the salesman I would take the F2 and by the way,
"What is that small, funny looking black camera on the bottom shelf"? He
pulled it out. "Well this is a Leica M2, only $400 and comes with three of
these heavy chrome lenses. Great camera for snapshots." he says. Hmmmmmm.
"Okay, put it in the bag."
    So, the next morning I was crawling around on the floor of the
photographers pit at a US Senate hearing on artists rights, or something
like that. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were testifying. So there I was
festooned with two old F's, the just purchased old F2 and Black M2. The
funny thing is most of the other photogs who were polishing the hearing room
floor with the seat of their trousers also had 'old' F's. One old geezer
also had a brassy, black Leica wrapped around his neck. So, I mostly used
the F's for Spielberg and Lucas with six frames taken by the M2.
    After that one roll the Black M2 gradually went from living on a shelf
somewhere and into a cardboard box along with other miscelaneous stuff. And
that is where it lived untill last January when rummaging around I found it.
I just about forgot that I even had it. When I lifted it out of the box its
like I went, gee, what's this. I felt it, turned it around and like I was
suddenly smitten.
    Looking through the viewfinder, solid black, cocked the advance lever,
jammed. A trip to Sherry for the M2 and fogged up lenses made it all right
again. Then came a second M2, a new 50mm Summicron, a almost new 90mm
Elmarit M and a cheap Japanese 28mm. And now after all these years of
photography I am actually in love and next is a darkroom except I know that
I am not going to find that in a cardboard box.

Steve
Annapolis