[Leica] "Small Negatives, Big Prints"

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (tedgrant at shaw.ca)]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Man" <richard at imagecraft.com>
To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 9:40 PM
Subject: [Leica] "Small Negatives, Big Prints"


> Just before I went to the Santa Fe Workshop, I got a really bad asthma
> attack. Third times in ~8 years and finally have it diagnosed as such. My
> wife was rather mad at me that I hit a whole bunch of triggers and didn't
> realize it until too late that it got to be a full blown attack. Of course
> Santa Fe being at 7000+ feet and cold, is rather bad for me as I am more
> used to 70 ft above sea level and 70 degree days. That wasn't the worst of
> it though. I took my inhalers and even a pot to cook the Chinese herbal
> medicine with me, and the asthma was under control.
>
> At the first day of the workshop, I took the Hassy+P30 back and 3 lens and 
> a
> heavy tripod, hiking uphill and all. I even told Bob Adler about it as he 
> is
> known to hike all over Yosemite with multiple Hassies and lens. For the 
> next
> 4 days, I switched to the Leica M9 to give my body a break. At the last
> morning of the workshop - the day when everyone else is wrapping things up
> and saying goodbye, since we are the "Landscape Class," we met up at 5 AM 
> to
> hike up to the Bandelier National Monument to catch the sunrise, in 
> sub-zero
> temperature. By then, my lower left back is killing me already, but there 
> is
> a sunrise to catch and photos to take. Not sure exactly how I hiked up and
> down too.
>
> After the hike, we went to breakfast, and I couldn't quite move. It was 
> bad.
>
> I met my  wife at the airport later that day, and we spent a couple more
> days together in New Mexico, playing with corgis and such, and just
> generally tried not to further hurt myself. Popping iburprofen helped to
> ease the inflamed ligament.
>
> After we got home, my wife took the heavy weapons - the Chinese ointments
> (Dit Da Jow and Tiger Balm), and massaged it and by next day the
> inflammation has gotten way down, but the spine is still twisted.
> Fortunately, I was able to get a short appointment with our body worker 
> Dr.
> Jim that evening and he straightened things up (literally) and now I can
> walk again.
>
> So what happened? After talking to Dr. Jim, we figured out what. The 
> problem
> is that this killing pain only shows up only once every 4-5 years and 
> while
> I knew that there may be some connections, I didn't think it through 
> before:
>
> 16 years or so ago, when our daughter was a wee one, I was driving her to
> preschool one day and a tire blew. I took out the spare tire and tried to
> remove the dead tire. Now imagine this: I was crouching down and trying to
> jerk the wrench up. I have since learned that it is FAR more efficient,
> effective and LESS damaging to put the wrench handle on the other side and
> stomp on it. In any case, I didn't at that time and I pulled up and I felt 
> a
> pop and.... instant mega lower back pain with inflamed ligament to boot. 
> I'm
> pretty sure I started to see Dr. Jim then for that exact problem.
>
> Now imagine this last week, I was hiking up mountains, so I am bending
> forward, carrying heavy camera equipments, plus a heavy duty tripod, in 
> cold
> weather. Yup, the posture is awfully similar to crouching down and weight
> bearing load...
>
> Of course being in a busy workshop and that I was working in the evening
> (ah, the joy of having your own company), I didn't have time to get some
> Motrin. Big mistake.
>
> Many many lessons learned.
>
> One of them is certainly Oskar Barnack legacy - small negatives, big 
> prints.
>
> -- 
> // richard <http://www.imagecraft.com/>
> // icc blog: <http://imagecraft.com/blog/>
> // photo blog: <http://www.5pmlight.com>
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>
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