Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/03/10

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Olympus with a tenuous link to a Leica M3
From: Adam Bridge <abridge@mac.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 17:11:30 -0700

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
>
>
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Replies: Reply from Sam <sam@osheaven.net> (Re: [Leica] Olympus with a tenuous link to a Leica M3)
Reply from sdp35 <sdp35@cwazy.co.uk> (Re: [Leica] Olympus with a tenuous link to a Leica M3)
Reply from "Ted Bayer" <tedbayer@wavecable.com> (Re: [Leica] Olympus with a tenuous link to a Leica M3)