[Leica] Ooops

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

> Eugene Smith -- who, you might remember from an earlier thread, used five 
> or
> six cameras at a time on a shoot if he could, mounted with lenses ranging
> from the very wide to the longest available -- frequently after he quit 
> Life
> Mag found himself with no cameras and all of them in hock and he would go
> around and find people to give him the money to get them out again. He lost
> more than a few this way.
> 
> Was he enough of a real photographer?
> 
> Sometimes, especially when others are relying on you, you do what you have
> to do. No part of one's work or one's equipment remains sacred in the face
> of a child. You'd have to turn away from that face in order to think it so.
> And many artists do that -- including Gene Smith, whose work was paramount
> to him, making him quit a good job and leave a good family too. But he sold
> off and pawned equipment many times when the wolf was finally sitting on 
> the
> studio floor checking his watch. The idea that art -- serious art -- is 
> good
> for people makes me laugh. It's more like Sherman's March.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 6:15 PM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Apparently I don't view my photo gear as liquid part of my net worth. Its 
>> a
>> solid. In 33.3 years as a photographer with most my friends being
>> photographers and this was the real world before the internet but we did
>> have the Shutterbug I  cant think of somebody who sold off a bulk of  
>> their
>> gear because they was having "a slow year". I'm sure it must have 
>> happened;
>> I just cant think of an example.
>> 
>> I did have a few friends who loved to buy and sell or trade cameras back
>> and
>> forth but I think they thought of better excuses to do so. Like "it was 
>> not
>> so sharp in the corners".     "the canons have better shift lenes - I'm
>> trading in all my Nikons for Canons.".
>> If always having new gear is the point then we can pick any excuse we want
>> to to justify that And the rest of us can all pretend we believe it.
>> Cameras are not money.
>> 
>> 
>> [Rabs]
>> Mark William Rabiner
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 

Wow is there a famous photographer somewhere in a the world who went through
a bunch of camrea gear? Amazing!
Eugene Smith  would go into a pawn shop and buy a Miranda camera and shoot a
story with it. I'm sure this makes my post meaningless.
Drug addition ( Amphetamines) and a alcohol finally did him in - that kind
of lifestyle can make for money problems a typical photographer night not
have.
I of course am not saying that my gear is sacred but saying that I don't
plan on buying and selling my cameras frivolously.

[Rabs]
Mark William Rabiner