[Leica] OH, COME ON

[Bill Clough]

Hi there –

I’m not much at playing Ted Grant, God rest his soul. As the deadline for
the LUG yearbook approached he would go into saturation mode and send
message after message encouraging members to submit photos to the annual
yearbook.

The number of photographers submitting to the yearbook this year is down 26
percent from last year,

Brian has extended the deadline.

I am reminded of a small-town newspaper in the late 1970s that ran a story
on the front page beside a three-column blank space with a border. In the
middle of the blank space were the words “This is where the photo would
have gone if the photographer had not missed the deadline."

Can you imagine what the yearbook would look like if Brian ran an empty
bordered box with the name of the LUG member right in the middle who did
not submit photographs?

The Leica Users Group is founded on two principles: a forum by which
members can request, or offer, information about cameras and lenses and
adaptors and such.

The other premise is sharing photographs. I don’t know of a photographer
anywhere who isn’t interested in seeing what others have photographed. For
those who refuse to post to the LUG, there is the annual yearbook.

Let’s look at this opportunity from a different perspective. The display
area of the yearbook for two pages is about 19 inches by 8-1/2 inches. If
you decided to buy an advertisement in a daily newspaper in a metropolitan
city, that ad with your color pictures would cost you an average of
$22,700. How many can afford that?

But take the same two photographs and submit them to the yearbook – the
salient part of that word is “book” – the appearance in the yearbook is
(gasp) free!

There’s still time. Go through the photos you took last year, pick the two
best and SUBMIT THEM.

Otherwise, Ted Grant is going to haunt you.