[Leica] RIP Jim Marshall

[s_gregory1 at mac.com (Scott Gregory)]

Jim was certainly an iconic photographer from our age. The access he had to 
music makers seems to be unprecedented. The last several years he has been 
involved with Rock for MS and has been instrumental in getting photographers 
such as Baron Wolman, Henry Diltz, and many others to donate their 
photographs from the heyday of rock, to be auctioned off with the proceeds 
going to Rock for MS. Amelia Davis, a photographer in her own right, had 
been Jim's assistant for the past 10+ years and is also the president of 
that organization. You can check a short video of Jim speaking about his 
involvement here:

 http://www.msfriends.org/index.php?pg=movie_gallery

I became very interested in his work back in the early 90's following 
reading an in depth article written by Jon Bowermaster for the old American 
Photographer magazine. If anyone would like to read a copy of that, I can 
send it to them in PDF form.

Anyway a number of years went by from that article and when I was more 
involved in the LHSA, I was speaking with my friend Eric Bohman who was the 
program director for the LHSA meetings, and I said "Eric, we need to get 
some life into these meetings and draw some younger people to the events. 
What would you think if I tried to make contact with Jim Marshall in San 
Francisco, who uses Leica cameras to speak at the San Antonio meeting. (I 
believe that was the correct city). After some discussion during which Eric 
re-iterated that Leica usually sponsored the banquet speaker, he gave me his 
blessing to try and see what I could do. I recall going through information 
and trying to call the Marshall phone numbers in San Francisco to attempt to 
make a contact. I had good luck as about the 5th number I called, a gruff 
voice answered and said "Hello". I explained who I was and wondered if this 
was Jim Marshall the photographer and he said yes and "who the hell are 
you". Talk about intimidation from the start, but I persevered and explained 
about the LHSA and why I was calling. He softened somewhat and said that he 
was going to be heading to New Mexico around that time and if something 
could be arranged he might fit it in his trip. So Eric and I talked again 
and it was left that Eric would try his best to get him to speak. I stayed 
in touch a few more times, speaking with Jim on the telephone since there 
were a few glitches that came up in getting him to speak. One of them being 
that someone in the LHSA told Jim he needed to pay for a membership before 
he could speak at the event. I got a call from Jim and he says: "What the 
fu*&Y)*_*_ is wrong with those people. Talk about fu)&(&*(I_*en small 
minds." He had a sailor's salty language for sure. But at the end of the day 
the meeting came off. The sad end to the story for me was that I was not 
able to attend the meeting that year due to personal issues that came up and 
I could not get away to the meeting. That error, on my behalf, I will always 
regret, in having a chance to meet this great photographer in person.
So anyone who appreciated his work, go out this weekend and take a black and 
white portrait with your Leica M. Talent like his only comes along so often,

Scott