[Leica] Tina, Bill & A Panther's Game

[Harrison McClary <hmcclary@earthlink.net>]

I wanted to relate my past weekend with them members of the LUG.

I covered the Packers/Panthers football game in Charlotte this past 
weekend.  Before going I wrote to Bill Welch and asked if he was going to 
be in Charlotte on this weekend, since he is from NC and one of his first 
jobs was with AP Charlotte.  He was going to be in town and I also 
contacted Tina Manley and we all met on Saturday night.

Bill and Tina are both wonderful people and I must say this was one of 
the most pleasurable road trips I have been on in a long while.  We all 
sat in Tina's favorite restaurant, and it was outstanding, until 11 pm or 
so.  Tina brought her noctilux and Bill and I ohhed and ahhed over it, 
what an impressive piece of glass!! Mid range on the aperture is 2.8!!!!  
We had a great dinner and traded stories. The globe trotting Tina has 
many great stories and her compassion that is evident in her photos is 
even more obvious when you meet her in person.

On Sunday Bill and I rode around Charlotte and looked at all of the new 
buildings then headed to the game.  Bill took his M6 in and a friend of 
mine said he was glad there was a "real photographer" at the game when he 
saw Bill's M6.  Another photographer came over and looked at my R8 and R6 
(I must admit I did not even shoot one frame with the R8, no motor is a 
BIG draw back for NFL coverage) and we talked about the metering on the 
R8 and the quality of the Leica glass.  The game was COLD.  I am a true 
southern boy and anything below 50 is H*** and it was around 39 at game 
time and dropped from there.  I know all you Yankees are going to say 
that is summer weather, but you can keep that cold junk, I want none of 
it!!  The game was a total blow out with the final score being 31-10, 
really hard for me to do my job as I shoot for a Panthers Fan Club 
magazine and you don't want to show to many shots of the QB getting 
sacked :(

All in all it was a great weekend and I enjoyed meeting 2 more members of 
our community face to face.  Sorry the rest of you missed out on our mini 
LUG meet in Charlotte.

Harrison McClary
http://people.delphi.com/hmphoto