[Leica] I'm still here!

[Douglas Barry]

Ted, it's very hard to answer your email adequately, but I have to say that 
while life is indeed a virtually inexplicable bitch: it's a bitch that 
sometimes scatters a bit of magic on us all.

And while you're around, us lucky Lug folk get a bit of magic sprinkled on 
us by you. So stick around, and keep sprinkling.

Rgds

Douglas

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ted Grant" <tedgrant at shaw.ca>
To: "'Leica Users Group'" <lug at leica-users.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 10:18 PM
Subject: [Leica] I'm still here!


> Hi Crew,
> Well I'm still here even though I'm not responding much. Sometimes life 
> just gets slow and you wonder why are you still breathing?
>
> The Smart-phones - iphones etc. without question are an incredible 
> communication tool. And without question, "a destroyer of many 
> professional photographers lives" as they once were!  PITY! 
>
> In my case, at the sweet and youthful age of just becoming 86 incredible 
> years May 27, 2015. I don't really give life a hoop! Yep I still receive 
> medical type assignments that pay hardly enough to buy a fine bottle of 
> Single Malt Scotch.  Heart breaking really.  
>
> I suppose given my first published photo, 17 September 1951 front page of 
> the Ottawa Citizen-Canada newspaper that launched me into a most 
> incredible life as a "Happy Snapper"    WHY?
>
> Well my dearest wife Irene whom I married 15 October 1949 gave me a little 
> 35mm ARGUS A2 camera for my first birthday, 27 May 1950 after we were 
> married! ( that's for the techies!) ;-) She became the toughest photo 
> editor you can ever imagine!
>
> She was always the best of the best in the search for the images that fit 
> the stories or were covering a documentary subject. Or whatever the 
> assignment! Surely that girl made me a far better photographer than any 
> other human being on the planet!
>
> And for so many years we joked about who would die first...... usually her 
> telling me?  " If I go first you wont know how to make the oven work?" My 
> response always? "Not a hope given my war assignments, crashing while 
> driving stock cars and Sprints! Oh yeah a couple of minor plane landings 
> that kind of broke the plane up a bit!" Oh yeah and te helicopter that 
> caught fire in the High Arctic at minus 50 below! :-(
>
> Unfortunately she was right. "She did go first!   3 years now after 64 
> years married!" I have quite frankly been a damn wreck since. Some days 
> nothing but wishing your heart would stop beating! Nor did I know how to 
> make the oven work!!  
>
> Someone told me, "Why don't you go out and take pictures?" I had to choke 
> my emotions to avoid killing the SOB!!!!!
>
> Sorry lads & ladies a bit of a bad day and the LUG happened to be my 
> friends to talk with. Sorry.  
> ted
>
>
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