[Leica] Peter Turnley

[leowesson at gmail.com (Leowesson)]

I think that everyone on a Leica list should be familiar with Peter since he 
is a Leica using photog who photographs every day.  

Leo Wesson
www.leowesson.com

On Jun 18, 2013, at 3:28 PM, Tina Manley <images at comporium.net> wrote:

> PESO:
> 
> For those not on Facebook, here is Peter Turnley's latest post.  I thought
> it was very interesting:
> 
> I first met Josef in 1975-I had made a phone call to my twin brother David
> from Paris on a Saturday morning, and while on the phone, he asked me if I
> had come across a Czech photographer everyone was speaking about. Later
> that day, I went out to take a walk with my girlfriend Karen, and stopped
> in a magazine shop and saw a set of photographs in a French photography
> magazine that really caught my eye, made by a man named Josef Koudelka.
> Later that afternoon, as I sat on a bench kissing Karen in the Luxembourg
> Gardens, Karen said-Pete-did you see that guy just took our picture. I
> looked up and saw a man walking by with an amazing Leica, beautifully worn
> with gold underplate shining, walking by with his camera at his hip aimed
> towards up. I jumped, up and ran after him-excited to meet someone with
> such a Leica. I called out in French, "did you make our photograph". The
> man stopped, and said a bit nervously with heavily accented english, "I am
> a just a tourist". As he spoke, I saw a second Leica hanging from his neck,
> as beautiful as the first, and I said, "where are you from". He said, "I am
> Czech". I said, "are you Josef Koudelka?". He replied with a laugh "yes". I
> patted him on the back and said, "come on, come and join us" and he came
> over and sat down with me and Karen. This began a first hand connection and
> friendship for me with someone that has profoundly inspired me for now more
> than 35 years. A few weeks after this first meeting in 1975, he invited me
> to join him in the evening at Magnum in Paris when everyone was gone, and
> laid out a newspaper and opened a can of sardines, with some butter and
> bread, and opened a bottle of wine, and we broke bread together. He looked
> at my photographs and when finished, said, "you have a good eye and a good
> heart". "You can do this, but you must find your own way, no one can do
> this for you, if it is important enough for you, you will find a way". At
> the time, I thought this was possibly the most generous honesty anyone
> could offer me and I knew he was right. At one quiet moment that night, he
> looked up and said something incredibly powerful and simple, "my idea of a
> good life, is that I wake up in the morning, and go out and look around and
> make 4 rolls of film a day". I have seen now Josef over the years many
> times, in Paris and elsewhere-also the gentleman who has printed his
> photographs (and HCB's), Voja, is also my printer, and we speak often of
> Josef, always with profound respect and admiration. In my own way, I have
> chosen a nomadic life over the past three decades, and the power of example
> of Josef, his passion, intelligent curiosity, amazingly personal
> penetrating vision, and his way of life, has been a constant inspiration
> for me. I don't use superlatives very often when speaking of photographers,
> but Josef, is in a class of his own. My thanks to a truly great man, and
> photographer.
> The above photograph of Josef was made at a Gypsy festival in the Dordogne
> in France in 1982. My thanks to a truly great man, and photographer.
> ? Peter Turnley. All rights reserved. France, 1982.
> 
> Tina
> 
> -- 
> Tina Manley
> http://tina-manley.artistwebsites.com
> 
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