[Leica] Re: Didly-Squat Assignments

[Bill Erfurth <m6rf@yahoo.com>]

This is a great story from John Stafford that was posted on the
alt.journalism.photo news group today.

John J. Stafford wrote:
> 
> Just a note in passing about growing up in PJ, coming to
> terms with what is important: Around 1971 I found myself
> assigned to cover a minor soap-box derby race in suburban
> Chicago. I was young, between the ages of the participants
> and their parents, bored with suburban stuff because there
> was so much more "happening" in the city of Chicago.
> "This is one didly-squat assignment.", I told myself, but
> tried to get into it anyway.
> 
> When I thought I'd seen it all, I made one more walk through
> the whole scene before leaving early, when I saw an older
> man in good clothes, European, I thought, smiling away and
> enthusiastically shooting pictures.  "A real enthusiast.",
> I thought. Then the man saw me, all decked out with three Nikons
> like any city photog and he said Hello.
> 
> Yea, a foreign accent. I introduced myself in passing, still
> moving on, and didn't catch his name. (Not being one to suffer
> difficult accents, I barely tried.)  "Didn't get it. What's
> your name again?", I asked.  "EISIE!", he said, smiling broadly.
> 
> Holy shit. It really was Alfred Eisenstaedt, on this "Didly"
> assignment in my idea of "nowhere suburbia."  I was so flustered
> that I reshot the whole thing. It ran as a full-page feature, but
> to this day, I'd love to know what Eisenstaed got. I've got to
> believe it was better.
> 
> There's something to be said about living in the moment without
> comparing it to what one imagines it could be. Those moments
> accumulate and become precious over time. Just plug away, as
> Jimi Greydog recently implied, and the truth, whatever it is, may arise.