[Leica] Not a professional photographer.

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

Hi Larry,

Thank you most generously for a wonderful life story! :-) What something 
like this does it opens up our ears, eyes and quite often what and how we 
relate to another member of the "CREW!!!" :-)

For me, the more I know of a fellow LUGGERS life experinces in photography 
the more I can appreciate his - her comments! Be that one who has Leica 
photography as a life long amateur experience or a good old fashion news 
person of 50-60 years clicking away! !!!!!!!!!! Damn it was a time!!!:-)

For me? I'm always fascinated by the life experiences of other members, 
quite simply as I have discovered over the years from these revelations many 
of us have attended the same event and maybe even rubbed shoulders while 
shooting... This usually during international sports and political events!

Enjoyed your life revelations! Thank you.

cheers,
Dr. ted


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <lrzeitlin at aol.com>
To: <lug at leica-users.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2013 4:37 PM
Subject: [Leica] Not a professional photographer.


> George,
> I never wanted to be a professional photographer but I became a 
> photojournalist by default. My teen aged ambition was to be an astronomer, 
> look through telescopes, and discover new planets. When I went to college, 
> I majored in astrophysics and took all the courses in optics I could sign 
> up for. To earn money, I became a photographic stringer for the Boston 
> Globe and, as the editor's joke, I was given the burlesque district beat. 
> Boston is a big navy town and burlesque was considered important 
> entertainment. It was for me anyway. I was a horny 18 year old and the 
> idea of getting paid for taking pictures of strippers was pure heaven. 
> Sally Rand became a friend of mine and made it easy to get good photo 
> stories. On the basis of these shots, after a year as a part timer, I got 
> put on the payroll and promoted to the news department.
>
>
> Because I was attending classes, I worked the late shift, 4 pm to 
> midnight, covering evening stories and the usual fires and shootings. Most 
> of the bad stuff happens after dark. After a couple of years of photo 
> grunt work, I was promoted to the Sunday photo feature section. This did 
> wonders for my sleep schedule. In the news department we used 4x5 Speed 
> Graphics, primarily because the films could be developed in 5 minutes and 
> cropped with scissors. Film size was important. Some of the staff 
> photographers had their own 35 mm cameras but to the best of my knowledge 
> a 35mm picture never appeared in the news section of the paper during my 
> tenure. I knew several photographers for Life and Look magazines and even 
> they used Rolliflexes. When I moved to the Sunday section with its more 
> relaxed deadlines, I used a personally purchased Kodak Medalist. This was 
> considered a miniature camera even though it took a 6x9 cm negative.
>
>
> Following college, I did an obligatory stint in the army during the Korean 
> war. Because of the degree in physics, I was assigned to the Armored Corps 
> (CONARC) at Ft. Knox, Ky. allegedly to do research on tank gunsights. 
> Someone discovered that I could take pictures, so I was shipped to Korea 
> to photograph armored equipment in combat. My army issued photo kit 
> consisted of a Leica IIIf with Signal Corps engraving to prevent my 
> selling it on the black market, a 35mm Summaron lens, a 50mm Summitar, a 
> 90mm Wollensack, a Weston meter, and an M1 carbine. The next year and a 
> half was spent ducking bullets and photographing armored vehicles.
>
>
> After rotation back to the States, I returned to college for a graduate 
> degree, again earning money by working as a photo free lance for the 
> Chicago Sun-Times and for UPI. I confess that I was not a very dedicated 
> photojournalist and never saw it a permanent career. It was just a way of 
> facilitating other objectives and paid me a minimal income while pursuing 
> them. In later years I did photo feature stories for travel magazines 
> covering India, Norway, and Wales. I never sold a single photo to a stock 
> agency. All my newspaper friends convinced me that it was no better than 
> being a union scab, A way of stealing work from legitimate 
> photojournalists. Now all I do is an occasional story for boating 
> magazines.
>
>
> Despite my diffidence as a photojournalist, I like photography, both as an 
> art and a science. I've been taking picures for over half a century, have 
> won my share of awards and witnessed the demise of many film types. 
> Unfortunately I never became an astronomer. I was disappointed when I 
> learned that telescopes were far too expensive to look through. Besides 
> all the planets were discovered anyway.
> Larry Z
>
>
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