[Leica] I'm still here!

[George Lottermoser]

On Jun 16, 2015, at 4:18 PM, Ted Grant wrote:

> 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. 

Ah Ted… always love seeing your name show up in the From…

You just completed your 86th year and remain my and other's role model:
to keep putting one foot in front of the other;
keep helping others on their photographic path;
keep walk'n;
bik'n;
shoot'n;
bitch'n;
keep keep'n it simple;
keep press'n the shutter button;
and laughing along.

You have absolutely nothing to apologize for.
If you need a thousand shoulders to feel sad on;
apparently there's a thousand of us reading your lament.

I only wish I knock on your door and give you a hug
for all the light and insight you have given me over the decades.

fond regards,

George

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