[Leica] Crisis of Con$cience

[Mark Rabiner <mark@rabiner.cncoffice.com>]

"We have to give this money back to this girl she is delusional" I said to my
wife back in 1981 when I was first starting out in commercial photography.
Courtney Harrison was awkward, abrasive and generally unattractive and could
play a C cord on her new Guitar. She said she was going to be a rock star. I was
simply not in the financial position to argue. But she was paying me with money
she had hard earned herself. She appeared to have no training or talent but had
a forceful personality (and a cute girlfriend).

"Who are we to decide who has talent and who is delusional?" was our expedient rationalization.
Courtney told me she was thinking of changing her last name to "Love" and could
I put that on the contract and the file folder?
I refused. I was not going to encourage such nonsense.
I just put her first name.

Now Courtney is the most famous women on the surface of Planet Earth.
She called a while back and does not want her shots posted on the internet.
My response was "What is the internet?" it's the first time i ever heard of it.
Sounded sleazy so i said OK.

But some of my photo's of her that day appeared in the film "Kurt and Courtney".
We taught her to play a few other chords and she went on from there!
She kept in touch for over a decade calling me long distance from various spots
telling me about the various rock and roll (which I know nothing about) people
she was involved in. Flattering.
Mark William Rabiner

Vaclav Havel no less helped get her her famous job in " The People vs. Larry Flynt"