RE: [Leica] RE: Eric & Tudors

["B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

Marc - I know that there is nothing about which you don't know everything,
so I appreciate your proving my point:

The vast majority of the folks you mention are, in fact, celebrities, not
noted photographers. They are the same kinds of celebrities to whom Rolex
gives watches, or whom Coach uses in its handbag ads. And, even more
interesting, most of them have been dead for decades.

There is no question the M is a fabulous photographic instrument, and
Leitz/Leica is a company with a rich and varied history. There is also no
question, in my personal opinion, that in terms of modern marketing
practices, the folks running Leica today are, unfortunately, dead from the
neck up.

That's not meant as an insult to you, Marc, so please don't respond as if I
were insulting either you or a family member of yours. It's simply a comment
on what I see as the sad state of affairs at the company that produces the
photographic instrument I use.

B. D.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of
> Marc James
> Small
> Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 1999 4:25 PM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: Re: [Leica] RE: Eric & Tudors
>
>
> At 10:41 AM 11/9/1999 -0000, B. D. Colen wrote:
> >Leica's giving free cameras to Queen Eliz. proves my point
> about their
> >twisted idea of marketing:
> >
>
> BD
>
> Someday, you'll check out the facts before opining.  It would
> make your
> postings a bit more authoritative!
>
> Leica has given away a slew of Leicas.  The first was to
> Count Ferdinand
> von Zeppelin (a friend of the Leitz family -- and Oscar
> Barnack did take
> the first photograph ever shot from an airship, over Wetzlar
> in the summer
> of '14, with the UR-Leica) in 1925.  Auguste Picard, the
> aerial trendsetter
> (and father of the bathyscaphe, as well), received a II in 1932.  Dr
> Gunther Dyhrenfurth, the noted Himalayan explorer, received a
> III in 1933;
> his son, Norman, the head of the first American Everest
> Expedition in 1963,
> received a IIIf in '53.  (Leica had first been taken to
> Everest in '33 by
> Larry Wager;  I'm still trying to locate his pictures.)  The
> Dalai Lama was
> gifted a IIIf in '51, and Dr Albert Schweitzer received the
> same type of
> camera that same year.  Henri Cartier-Bresson received an M3
> in '55.  Sten
> Kruckenhauser, Fulvio Roiter, Emil Schulthess, Arthur
> Rothstein, Alfred
> Eisenstaedt, Paul Wolff, were all professional photographers
> gifted with
> Leicas.  The inventors of both the Kodachrome and Agfachrome
> processes were
> each given a Leica.  Und so weiter.
>
> The gifts have been all over the board, with Elizabeth's two
> cameras being
> a drop in the bucket.  For that matter, Pandit Nehru, Dwight
> Eisenhower,
> and Konrad Adenauer seem the only other heads of state to be
> so honoured.
> (And, in any event, the Queen's gifts were years back, in '58
> and '65.)
>
> Marc
>
> msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
> Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!
>
>