Roll-Call

[Thomas Pastorello <tmp@mailbox.syr.edu>]

Dear Leica-users,
  I'm Tom Pastorello, age 51.  Although I'm on your list only a couple of
weeks, I've already received kindly offered useful information.  As a
partial statement of thanks, I'll share my background and photographic
interests briefly for your roll-call request.
  I'm a professor at Syracuse University (upstate New York, USA) where I
teach research methods and statistics as well as behavioral and social
sciences for the School of Social Work.  After getting my Ph.D in 1973, I
worked as a national survey project director and, later, as Director for
Clinical and Program Evaluation and Research for a long-term care center
before going to the university to teach gerontology.
  Among the topics areas I teach and do research in is psychoanalytic
theory.  Only with extreme reluctance should you share your dreams on this
listserve.  I do find that there is a connection between this interest and
my photography.  One type of photography I attempt is that which projects
unconscious themes.  In this regard, a workshop I attended and enjoyed
very much was one offered by Gil Leebrick in Highlands, North Carolina.
He called it Zen and the Art of Photography and it emphasized right brain
techniques for realizing a visualization of a landscape which captures
your internal, subjective reaction to the scene as much as the objective
reality.  Of course, dark room follow-up, using Zone System
principles, becomes essential for this type of work.  What do my
photographs look like?  For the most part, they look like everyone else's
snap-shots.  I'm talking theory here not what I actually accomplish.  (I
hope that those who know my work would say I understate a bit.  Given my
philosophy of photography it really doesn't matter what others think.  I'm
not a professional.  I have, therefore, the luxury of using using
photograhy in a self-expressive, even self-indulgent, way.)
   My other main interest in photography is, for lack of a better term,
travel photography. This relates to another topic area in which I teach
and do research:  human diversity.  I enjoy trying to get to know other
cultures and their ancient pasts.  I spend alot of time at archeological
sites and museums, requiring some special equipment and technigues.  I've
visited important sites in the Greek World, the Roman Empire of the East
and West, the Persian Empire and North African Culture, including Egypt.
(An ancient coin collection has grown along with this photographic and
historical interest.)  In this regard, I enjoyed John Sexton's workshop
conducted in Arizona and Utah called A Sense of Place.  It was a beautiful
opportunity to know and photograph the sacred places of the ancient
Anasazi Indians.  In my next phase of travel, I hope to begin to explore
the East and look forward to explorations in China, India and Japan to
start.  (I hope anyone would feel free to advise me as to what to see
where.)
   My trusted travel companion is my understanding and long suffering
wife, Irmgard.  (She is the daughter of Bavarian immigrants, as I am the
son of an Italian immigrant.  She was raised in German Town, New York City
and I in Little Italy, New York City.)  Her age is #&*%$@.  (Hmmmm,
strange transmission problem.)  I can tell you that she enjoys photography
too and as a local school librarian is in charge of the annual Year Book.
She manages to do more interesting things with her old Olympus 35RC than I
do with my Leica.  She has a great eye and doesn't get into equipment talk
and technical talk much.  She doesn't think there's much of a difference
between a 35RC and an M6.  Fortunately, she does't know much about the
price difference either. This fact has allowed me to buy more than one
Leica.
   Our daughter, Irena, age 22, is the photographic star of the family.
She is presently a senior at Syracuse University majoring in
Photojournalism.  She is a student intern at our local Post-Standard and
her pictures can be scene in the paper here almost everyday.  Did I teach
her everything she knows?  Well, I taught her the value of good, solid
reliable mechanical cameras, the advantages of the rangefinder over
the SLR, some advantages of large-format and the skilled
use of our darkroom.  How did she in integrate and apply all my
teachings? She went out and got herself a Nikon SLR autofocus system and
prints via digital scanning.  But I can't argue with the results.  She
does fine work, we enjoy her as an occasional travel companion and, we are
quite proud of her.  And, oh yes, we live vicariously through her.
   Equipment?  You thought I'd never get to that.  I have had a
a near life-long fascination with high quality optical instuments.  I
attribute this interest, in part, to watching, during my childhood, my
father remove and place in his glass eye.  My identity bond with him had
some unconscious carry-over for a later hobby -- I so determined from
analysis of dreams, slips, art projections, etc.  (I warned you not to
divulge dreams on this listserve.  Try not to misspell and otherwise slip
as well.)  I'm a promiscuous lens collector, user and discarder.  I won't
hold on to a lens if I don't somewhat actively use it.  I have had Zeiss
lenses for the Hasselblad all-mecahical 500.  (I found that a great 2-lens
set is the 60mm 3.5 and the 120 Makro-Planar.  They are Zeiss' 2 best
overall lenses and provide wide to long coverage with macro capability.)
For large format, I love the woodfield Deardorffs.  I liked the idea that
for it I did not have to stick to one line of lenses and could get a
Scneider wide (90 8.0) and a Rodenstock normal (150 5.6) and a Nikon long
(300 9.0).  Yes, I have had and do have a 35mm SLR system.  I trust my old
mecahical Nikon FM-2 and use or have used with it the types of lenses I
can not use in my Leica M-System : e.g., 16mm Fisheye, 28mm PC, 35-200
3.5-4.5 compact zoom (I think the best zoom Nikon ever made), the fine
macro lenses and my longest lens, the 300 4.5.  Of course, these are 
all non-AF, AIS.  Should I trade these in
for a Leica R-System?  I don't know that system.  Convince me! 
   In my promiscuous buying, selling and trading habits, I have two
regrets.  I should never have sold my Contax-T nor my Paubel Makina 6x7
camera (with Nikkor 80mm 2.8).  They were the very best in their classes
of sub-compact and medium format.  I respect the opinions expressed on the
Minox, but the Contax-T was a true rangefinder with optical qualities that
had to equal or better the Minox.
   The one system I have a life-long committment to is the Leica M-system.
I saved the best for last.  In my youth I stumbled upon a strange looking
creature in a camera shop in Rochester.  It had shiney knobs and dials and
an elegant design.  Although I went into the shop for a point-and-shoot
for a firend, I wound up buying a Leica IIIF for myself along with a
Summiron 35mm 3.5, a Summitar 50 2.0 and a 90 Elmar 4.0.  The quality
rivaled the modern point-and-shoot cameras of today in spite of today's
technology.  I had to graduate to the M-line.  When Wetzlar announced its
new M6 in the mid-1980's, I must have been among the first to buy.  My
first 2 lenses continue to be among my favorite: the 50mm Summilux 1.4 and
the 135mm Tele-Elmarit 4.0.  They are truly flare proof and sharp and
contrasty under all conditions. I strongly prefer to work under
available light and dislike flash effects.  Hence, it wasn't long before I
tried the fastest lenses: 35 lux 1.4, 50 noct 1.0 and 75 lux 1.4.  They
are all unbelievable in their ability to render contrast, sharpness and
that wonderful 3-D molding unique to Leica under the dimist of available
light conditions.  I had little trouble training myself to hold steady at
1/8 or 1/4 with very satisfying results.  For landscapes, I've enjoyed the
wide-anles: 21mm, 28mm (the latest version is as close to the perfect
lens as possible) and the new 24.  The 28 does not disappoint on flare
control; the 24 does.  For portraits, I've enjoyed both the 90 2.0 and 
the 2.8.  (The latest 2.8 is clearly superior the older Tele-Elmarit 
for close-up work.) The 35mm cron 2.0 is wonderfully pocketable.  I'm sad
to see it go.  It's unfortunate that the 2.0 ASPH adds size.  The 35 1.4
cannot compare to the new 35 1.4 asphericals for sharpness and contrast
wide-open, but I must say that the older 35 1.4 had special character. It
provides the special Leica 3-D molding that I don't quite see any longer
in the aspherics, and wide-open that lens would, under available light
conditions, add a soft, romantic and quite beautiful glow to the world.
   I have much to say about the special characteristics of these and other
lenses.  They are like good friends I know well.  I have come to know
their faults and virtues and, in every instance, love them
unconditionally.  I'd like to share more of my sense of the special
characteristics of each lens in the M-line -- from the perspective of this
one user; however, this brief roll-call entry is now beginning to get
beyond brief.  I will share my opinion on these lenses in future listserve
submissions.  If you have questions about a specific M-lens, or
want to share your experiences with a specific M-lens, please e-mail me.
I am not an expert and many of you are not, but it has been my experience
that you learn much more about what a lens can or cannot do from a
perceptive user's report than from technical tests and charts.  I
look forward to our dialogues.
                                        Tom Pastorello 

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