[Leica] Eisenstaedt

["Leslie E. England" <engl6914@iamerica.net>]

    I had two interesting experiences this weekend.  First, I went to
Antietam battlefield in Maryland to visit the scene of Our Heroic
Defense of the Sharpsburg ridge line.  I was also trying to retake with
an M2 and 50 Alex Gardner's photos taken just after the battle using his
view camera, glass negatives, and a darkroom mounted on the bed of his
wagon.  As I walked up to the New York state memorial outside the
visitor's center, another photographer, accompanied by a park ranger,
was setting up a tripod and mounting a Nikon on it.
    From twenty feet away he spotted my camera and yelped, "My God, a
Leica!  Is that an M3?"
    "M2," I said.
    "A man after my own heart," he said.  "I haven't seen one of those
in a while."
    He rambled on how he had worked for Life Magazine and how this
fellow Eisenstaedt had talked him into getting a Leica and how everyone
on the staff finally came to use them--IIIc's, IIIf's, and g's.  Then,
he said, Canon and Nikon came in and gave cameras away to anyone who
would use them and a lot of the staff switched.  Not Eisenstaedt,
though; he went on to the M.  I want to say how Eisenstaedt waved his
hand at them and called them a lost generation, but the old photographer
said  Eisenstaedt didn't say any more than it's not the box, guys, it's
the lenses.
    While I was trying to get the retake of the scene of the Knap's
Battery photo there by the NY monument, this older photographer (for the
life of me I can't remember his name) was trying to help the Park
Service out by taking a panoramic photo using his Nikon and multiple
exposures and a computer to recreate one of the paintings of the battle.

    Second, the next day I was on the sidewalk in Georgetown outside
Banana Republic while my daughter worked my Amex card inside.  I've got
the M2 and 50 in my hand, and I'm passed about 5 times, back and forth,
by the quintessential street photographer with a huge marroon bag, and
SLR with about a two foot long lens on it.  He was trying to photograph
any weird or good looking woman on the opposite (sunny) side of the
street.   He was nervous and jumpy, and had he had a third hand would've
been chain smoking.  He was also frustrated.  People blocked his
subjects, or the subjects moved too much for his lens view.
    I took two photos on the same block, both on my side of the street,
each at about 8 feet with the 50 mm.  One was of a woman mounting a sign
with some rattling and not making sense prose and her looking like she
could use some Haldol.  Another was of a chef and waiter in the door of
their restaurant.  I didn't try to hide anything, but worked quickly,
and while they were unposed, everyone knew afterward I'd taken their
picture, but no one pulled a knife or even looked bothered.  I haven't
printed them, but the negatives look okay.  I swear I got better shots
than anything I saw the other other fellow trying to get.

Lee England
Natchez, Miss.