Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2017/02/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Lluis:I enjoyed looking through your collection of subway photographs. (http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/luisrq/Subway/20131008_L1035917BN.jpg.html) Needless to say, you make excellent, fascinating photos.As I stepped through images, I was struck by the trends in what people do as they spend time on trains. I speculated about the differences in cultural experience over that 100+ years that metros have been used. Perhaps the most striking is the rampant changes due to technology.Frankly I wonder about the disconnect between people in daily lives now that so many are looking at the phones in their hands, and listening to the sound piped into their ears. I don?t ride trains too often (since I don?t live in a metro area). Over the past 4 months though I have spent a good bit of time on trains in New York city and Washington, DC. I am not one to look at a phone and listen to whatever as I travel. I enjoy looking at others, making eye contact, and engaging in conversation (though not so much on trains). These days, I don?t get too much eye contact. Some of that could be due to my age (62) but I suspect most of it has to do with the phones. I think of this as a loss of personal interaction. And I think it is a loss to the human experience. I do wonder what impact this will have in society.It will be an interesting to see what sociologist and historian will one day say about this.So, Lluis, thank you, for helping me think of this.As a side note, I had a good experience in the Leica store in DC. The people there allowed me to borrow a ?user? M9 (some variation). The staff was quite helpful and willing to accommodate me. By way of the camera - I was impressed. It felt quite comfortable (easy transition from an M6TTL). Interestingly, my first comment was the thickness of the body as compared to the film camera (attention all who are considering an M10).So, with the news of the M10, I am thinking and counting pennies. On the other hand about 8 months ago I jumped on the Fuji X-Pro2 bandwagon. Now I have two Fuji and one Zeiss prime lenses. And, oh my, this is a marvelous camera and the lenses are near perfection. You can?t help but make technically ok photos without any effort. Alas, I still am bothered by the APS sensor size (I just can?t get away from the 35mm preconception of angle of view of a given lens). This water in now muddied by the new medium format Fuji on the way. Who knows where I will wind up with all this.I must say that the both M9 and X-Pro2 are both incredibly fantastic tools. ?They both have strengths and weaknesses. I could not complain about either.Again, Lluis, angain, thank you for your great photographs. Now I can think about society, and photographic hardware. And I could only hope to get a few photos in my life that might say as much as so many of yours do.Rod Smith