[Leica] Nice story (was sneak thief)

[Mike Dembinski <mdembin@it.com.pl>]

Am enjoying current 'sneak thief' thread. Can empathise with many posts.
My own 'in street' defence is to adopt the facial expressions of a
somewhat confused tourist, slight smile on face, looking hither and yon
as in 'What an Interesting Place This Is'. Occasional raising of
eyebrows in exaggerated surprise at seeing something interesting.
AGreed. Never show fear.

Today I had an hour between meetings and wanted to capture the beauty of
a Polish winter (8.5 degrees C below zero). I took my Minolta TC-1, my
everyday companion. I was on the Vistula scarp, overlooking the valley,
light slanting in catching the snow. An old man walking his dog came in
to view. Unshaven yet wearing a tie and fur-collared coat, he looked
interesting. But how to get *close* with a 28mm lens?

I pretended to be interested in snow sitting on tall plant stalks. He
held his dog on the leash, telling me not to worry about the animal.
Immediately I engaged him in talk. He told me an interesting story...

When he was a small boy, he was convinced that the sun was actually far
smaller than it seemed, That it only looked big to the eye because of
its glare. He began training his eyes to look directly at the sun, step
by step. He'd look into lightbulbs, low-wattage ones at first, until he
could make out the glowing filaments within. He'd build up looking at
ever-more powerful lights, training his retina muscles. ("To shut down
to f/128" in our parlance). He claimed he could stare into an old
fashioned cinema projector lamp, for example, to see the filament. He
could then spend long periods of time looking into the sun, searching
for details on its surface...

BS or not, he claims this obsession ruined his eyesight, which was why,
unlike me, he could never pursue photography as a hobby. Our
conversation turned to philosopy and religion (hey, rather like LUG!);
by the time I had to make a move to my next appointment, I asked him if
I could take his portrait. By now he was comfortable enough for me to
get into 45cm distance - minimum for the TC-1.

I snapped. Unfortunately he was posed, so no spontanaeity, but a nice
record nevertheless of an interesting (visually and in terms of Life
Wisdom) old guy.

Later this morning, driving back to the office, I could see ahead of me
a nasty car crash - a dismally-regular occurance in Poland, where
new-found wealth on a mass scale has caused an orgy of car-buying, not
matched by any improvement in driving skill or road infrastructure :-(
. Not wishing to rubber-neck, I wound down the window, pointed my TC-1
at the wreckage without taking my eyes off the road. We'll see what
happened when the pictures are developed...

Mike