Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/11/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Bennett Gardner 49/o Family Physician Fort Worth, Texas First interested in photography in 1960's, learned thru trial/error, then School of Modern Photography correspondence school (what a trip! fun at that young age), side-by-side work with professional sports photographers in Washington/Baltimore are to learn football/hockey, basketball, etc photography. Later worked one-on-one with portrait and wedding photographers on east coast. Most incredible experience was taking photos in Laurel, Maryland at the scene of George Wallace shooting (I was 5 feet away, really in the wrong place at a terrible time. Lucky not to be injured. AP bought & world-wide circulation front page resulted.) First Leica was SLMOT in 1972 (over 100,000 exposures and still in weekly use, sidelines at Dallas Cowboys' games). Currently use R's and M's with lenses from 24 to 280 (and the better half uses a Z2X). I enjoy sports photography, but gain the most creative fulfillment using relatively abstract approaches to those things which we look at, but don't really see. I bought my first Leica because I did not want the excuse of "If I only had a better camera, then my pictures would look better" to be a part of my life. If my photographs were not outstanding, it was not the fault of the camera. I think that decision was a wise one.