Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/03/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Hon, This was posted on the Leica list. You have liked Graham's photography. I think you'll find this moving. Love you! Only 24 hours!!!!! Adam On Wednesday, March 10, 2004 Graham Battison thoughtfully wrote: >I am sitting in the churchyard at Flore eating my lunch. The service has >been over for some time, a few stragglers are leaving the church after >spending some time chatting. The sky is a typical English mix of blue with >white clouds in some parts and black as thunder in others. > >I watch what I take to be worshipper set out on a footpath across a field in >front of the church and think to myself that she must be very devout to walk >from the next village to attend services. The path although fairly dry today >can be >very messy. I take a shot, my usual stuff, landscape with lone figure. > >When I look again the lone figure is on the far side of the field and turns >to come back toward the church. She is walking slowly, head occasionally >bowed, obviously lost in thought as if reluctant to complete the field >crossing. >I toy with the idea of another shot but my sandwiches are good and I let the >moment pass. I have since found out that her late father used to walk his >dog on that footpath. > >Eventually she returns to the churchyard and stands over a grave for a time >then approaches me. She stops a distance from where I am sitting (very >English) and asks if she might ask a favour of me (decidedly un-English). >She explains that she used to live locally and had been visiting her mother >in nearby Daventry and that the grave she had been looking at was that of >her father. She was on her way back to Devon, where she now lives after >returning from several years in America and had stopped by the church to >take a photograph of the grave (she pays someone local to tend it). > >Finding that the camera she thought was in the car was not there she was >considering where she might buy a disposable on a winters Sunday in the UK >when she saw me take a shot of her walking across the field. She asks, "Was >I a photographer?" and "would I take a photograph for her of her fathers' >grave?". "In the loosest possible sense" and "yes I would" I replied. > >I took a couple of shots, she thanked me profusely and with her emotions >running high and my web address in her purse she left at about 1:30pm. I >finished my lunch and as insurance against looking an idiot I took a few >extra shots of the grave before I left. > >Devon is quite a drive from Flore but at 7pm I got an email (maybe she has a >Lear jet) and she tells me that she has been smiling "about life's little >co-incidences". Not only does she "meet a chap with a camera but >a real photographer" (she has by this time visited my web site) >and "you just never know your luck, do you?". > >She closes her email with a post script: >"I wonder if you know the work of James Ravilious? I think you would >appreciate it. I had a small hand in the last published book of his >photographs with text by Peter Beacham called 'Down the Deep Lanes' >published by Devon Books. I'll give you further details if your >interested." > >I checked him out. He was born 1939, died 1999 and wandered around Devon >shooting local stuff with a Leica M3. It's a small world. > >http://www.geebeephoto.com/temp/Flore/Flore.html > > >Graham >http://geebeephoto.com > > >-- >To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html