Re: [Leica] Leica bug [long - long post]

["David Medley" <dmedley@whidbey.net>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alastair Firkin <firkin@netconnect.com.au>
> >Lets hear about you and how photography entered your
> >life, and how the LUG has emptied your bank account ;-)

Wow, big question.......long answers,

I'm not sure why, but some time around my eighth year I decided I needed a
camera and pooled all of my resources and bought a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye.
By the time I was nine I was giving my mother fits because the best sunset
photos could only be taken from the roof of our house. Sometime around my
tenth year I was hauling buckets of water up to my bedroom and my makeshift
darkroom. As professor Harold Hill would say, I was "on the road to
degradation"

I was about fourteen when I started helping out, on Saturdays,  in Mr.
Bicknell's camera shop. A whole world opened up and I saw the light. My
Brownie would no longer do the job. My first good camera was a Rolleicord
III,  thanks to Mr. Bicknell and low payments. I even used that camera
commercially until someone saw fit to remove it from my car years later.

I started shooting for the high school paper and yearbook and with the help
of a wonderful teacher (David Small) started to appreciate the image and
not just the mechanics of the medium. Shooting football with a 4x5 Graphic
is a wonderful way to look for the image and not just bang away. Mr. Small
sent me out for my first real job interview at a local portrait studio.
(I got the job)

My first 35mm camera was a Wittnauer RF with three lenses. It was built
like a tank and to this day could hold its own in a street fight. There
was, however, something just not right about that camera and one day I held
a Nikon S-2 in my hands and was stricken. Three days later, it and three
lenses were mine. 

I did the usual "stuff" while going to Portland State College - paper,
yearbook etc. Someone said the other day it was a neat way to meet girls.
It was and is ........... we have been married for thirty five years. 

While at Portland State I started doing free lance and commercial work,
some of it for a large commercial studio in Portland. We had a few
customers that insisted on 8x10 and that was a kick in the pants. We had a
twelve foot step ladder with a large Majestic head mounted on it for
exterior architectural work. With my '58 VW, the sun roof open and my
"tripod" sticking out the top I could just clear some the trees as I drove
down the road. That job was my first experience with the M-2, M-3 series
and I never looked back.

I worked in the Boeing photo group  in Seattle for about 41/2 years and
then started free lancing. One of my first jobs upon leaving Boeing was an
ad for ......... yup, Boeing. They did not hire me, the ad agency did and I
thought, " cool"........ I made more in one day than I did my last month at
Boeing. Alas, that does not happen every day!

Years later I realized that I was no longer having fun with my camera. I
had got side tracked somewhere and was working for people and projects that
I really did not care for. I started doing other things to make a living. I
quit making photographs for quite a long time.

One day my wife came home (she is a teacher) and told me I had
"volunteered" at the high school. They had a yearbook, a darkroom, a
deadline and absolutely no idea what to do with any of it.  I dusted off
the M-4's,  took a deep breath, and dove in. Photography is fun again. I do
some teaching at the Coupeville Arts Center, shoot a few jobs that I am
interested in and while I may forget to put on my underwear in the morning,
 the M-6 always goes on first.

In the last few years I have done more than my share to help with the
balance of payments. I have a couple of M-6's and the lenses to go with
them. Most of my work is done with a single M-6, a 21mm Aspherical, 35mm
Summicron Aspherical, 50 mm Summicron and once in awhile the 90 mm
Tele-Elmerit. If you were to leave me with one M-6 and the 35 mm Summicron
I could go for the rest of my life and be happy. I am a street shooter in
my heart and that is all I really need to be whole.

I'm not really sure how long this post is -  I will apologize now..........
it is long,  it has been a little like therapy. And, if you have kept up
with me over the paragraphs I would like to thank all of you. This is a
most delightful group and while I don't post often I do enjoy the daily
rantings and even the occasional squabble. It reminds me of some of the
best of families.



Cheers,
David Medley
Whidbey Is.   WA
USA
dmedley@whidbey.net