Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/08/22

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Subject: Re: Obsessions
From: Oddmund Garvik <garvik@serveur.interliger.fr>
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 16:28:57

Charles wrote (snipped):

>Therefore I wouldn't be too quick to condemn the purely technical
>discussions here (or their participants) as the products of pointless
>fanaticism.

Well, Charles, you are probably right, I might be "too quick to condemn the
purely technical discussions here". But I find the technical discussions
very narrow, and when "confirmed" Leica users continue discussing trivial
"problems", sometimes imaginary "problems" in connection with a simple
camera as a Leica M, I find it exaggerated and obstinate. I am sorry, but I
am a Leica M user mostly because it is such a simple and handy photographic
*tool*. The camera is so intuitive that we don't really need all this
trivia. I accept that some of the members might find this interesting, and
I never try to limit the discussion. It doesn't bother me, unless when it
becomes purely techno. 

What the hell, I have been trying to blow a bit of reality and life into
this forum since almost a year now. I am not always diplomatic, or
objective (unbiased), but I think a Leica photographer forum needs to be
drawn towards "higher places". The Leica M is charged with photographic and
political history, and we cannot ignore this inheritance. I think the noble
intentions would serve the purpose better. 

When I was trying to learn photography, commencing with the simplest
things, I didn't get any advises. I didn't ask for them either. Technique
is auxiliary. You have to know some basic principles, but on the road you
find your own solutions, which are personal and intimate. There are no "how
to do" this, or that. There are no rules, just light and subtleties, some
very transient structures which everyone must try to understand themselves.
All the rest is trivial, mercantile and boring. In my opinion, of course.

Oddmund