[Leica] I'm still here!

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Hi Crew,
Well I'm still here even though I'm not responding much. Sometimes life just 
gets slow and you wonder why are you still breathing?  

The Smart-phones - iphones etc. without question are an incredible 
communication tool. And without question, "a destroyer of many professional 
photographers lives" as they once were!  PITY! ?

In my case, at the sweet and youthful age of just becoming 86 incredible 
years May 27, 2015. I don't really give life a hoop! Yep I still receive 
medical type assignments that pay hardly enough to buy a fine bottle of 
Single Malt Scotch.  Heart breaking really.  ? 

I suppose given my first published photo, 17 September 1951 front page of 
the Ottawa Citizen-Canada newspaper that launched me into a most incredible 
life as a "Happy Snapper"  ?  WHY?

Well my dearest wife Irene whom I married 15 October 1949 gave me a little 
35mm ARGUS A2 camera for my first birthday, 27 May 1950 after we were 
married! ( that's for the techies!) ;-) She became the toughest photo editor 
you can ever imagine!  

She was always the best of the best in the search for the images that fit 
the stories or were covering a documentary subject. Or whatever the 
assignment! Surely that girl made me a far better photographer than any 
other human being on the planet! 

And for so many years we joked about who would die first...... usually her 
telling me?  " If I go first you wont know how to make the oven work?" My 
response always? "Not a hope given my war assignments, crashing while 
driving stock cars and Sprints! Oh yeah a couple of minor plane landings 
that kind of broke the plane up a bit!" Oh yeah and te helicopter that 
caught fire in the High Arctic at minus 50 below! :-(

Unfortunately she was right. "She did go first! ?  3 years now after 64 
years married!" I have quite frankly been a damn wreck since. Some days 
nothing but wishing your heart would stop beating! Nor did I know how to 
make the oven work!!  ? 

Someone told me, "Why don't you go out and take pictures?" I had to choke my 
emotions to avoid killing the SOB!!!!! 

Sorry lads & ladies a bit of a bad day and the LUG happened to be my friends 
to talk with. Sorry.  ?
ted


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