Re: [Leica] funerals ! :-(

["Ted Grant" <tedgrant@home.com>]

From: "Austin Franklin" <austin@darkroom.com>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 6:23 PM
Subject: RE: [Leica] funerals ! :-(


> Heck, Ted.  I'm surprised you didn't take the big guy out with your third
> degree burn in hibachi, or at least your rapidwinder handle ;-)<<<<<

Hi Austin,

This was along time before RapidWinders! :-)  And this was a really really
really big guy, like the kind you see in the movies about to rip the sweet
innocent guys head off! ;-)

And me being the sweet innocent guy in this case, I wasn't about to test his
head removing ability! :-)
ted
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Ted Grant
> Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 9:05 PM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: Re: [Leica] funerals ! :-(
>
>
> Hi B.D.
> I had an assignment at the paper to take pictures of a particularly well
> known "bad guy" kind of family and as would have it I wasn't told it was
> supposed to be a very private affair.  some kind of arrangement with the
> paper and the family.
>
> Nice editors do this "We should try and get a picture of ..... Send a
> photographer, just assign him and not tell him it's private and lets see
> what happens!
>
> I could see I was the only shooter in sight so I figured this is a biggy
> family and maybe I'm not supposed to be here. I went back to the car put
> together a 560mm 6.8 and was away back from the event figuring I was out
of
> sight!
>
> I was looking through the camera when there was a tap on my shoulder and
as
> I turned around a really big guy, like a really really big guy,  had me by
> the throat and suggested, with a smile on his face, that if I didn't give
> him the film (heck I hadn't even had a shot yet) and leave immediately
he'd
> put me face down in the grave before the coffin was lowered and nobody
would
> ever know where I went !
>
> So I thought that was good of him, opened the camera, took the film out
> pulling it right out of the cassette and handed it to him. He smiled and
let
> go and I  very quickly and quietly went to the car!
>
> When I got back to the paper and related my story to the city editor all
he
> said was, "Oh, so you didn't get any pictures?"  And that was the end of
the
> story.
>
> I would say under what we might call normal circumstances, this editor
would
> have been onto the police phone very quickly due to my "being threatened
and
> in effect, "assaulted."  However, in this case as I found out later, the
> papers had given their word the funeral would not become a media event and
> the editor who sent me was completely aware of that when he sent me.
>
> But you've heard the old saying , "What goes around , comes around." And
the
> editor was eventually fired for sending a photographer into another bad
> situation.
>
> ted
> Ted Grant Photography Limited
> www.islandnet.com/~tedgrant
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>
> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
> Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 8:59 AM
> Subject: Re: [Leica] funerals ! :-(
>
>
> > Ted - Dare we ask what happened lo those many years ago?
> >
>