Re: [Leica] One history of Leica Obsession

["Raimo Korhonen" <raimo.korhonen@pp2.inet.fi>]

Good read! Thanks!
Raimo
photos at http://personal.inet.fi/private/raimo.korhonen
nyt myös Kameralehden juttuja suomeksi

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> From: Mike Dembinski <mdembin@it.com.pl>
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: [Leica] One history of Leica Obsession
> Date: 25. lokakuuta 1998 7:05
> 
> Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 22:08:21 +0200
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> From: Mike Dembinski <mdembin@it.com.pl>
> Subject: Anatomy of Leica obsession
> Cc:
> Bcc:
> X-Attachments:
> 
> Having been introduced to LUG and the like-minded fellowship of Leica
> obsessives, I'd like if I may to share with you the feelings of
Leicosity.
> 
> My introduction to photography began with the purchase in 1979 of a Zenit
> TTL in Olsztyn, Poland. I recall the (mal)odour of its (n)ever ready case
> and its ham-fisted construction. I sold it in England for a vast profit,
> which helped me buy a Nikon EM, huge improvement over the Zenit.
> Black-and-white interested me from the beginning; a Zenit UPA-5 enlarger
> turned out reasonable prints for a beginner. And colour slides. I did
those
> too.
> 
> I would have been happy with this black plastic SLR, it took reasonable
> snaps with its Nikon E-series lens, good enough to enlarge to 10x8 or to
> project onto a screen. I bought a 28mm lens, a 135mm lens and for a while
> was blissfully satisfied in the innocence that was Early Photography.
> 
> Until, that is, my friend Stan showed me his father's Zorki I (Leica II
> copy). I was thrilled with its density - it was so heavy for its size,
its
> little windows, knurled knobs, the lens that you popped out, the very
idea
> of it was just so much more *pure* than my modern Japanese auto-exposure
> only camera...
> 
> At around this time I began looking into camera shop windows. I began
> lusting after *cameras* for their own sake. In the window of City Camera
> Exchange (Waterloo) I saw a camera called a 'Leeka' (had no idea how to
> pronounce it then) which cost like 200 pounds... second hand... and it
> didn't even have an auto exposure mode... or even a light meter... and it
> was not an SLR. In those days, a Canon A1 body cost about the same and
had
> three auto exposure modes, took damn good optics and was Respected be
> Anyone Who Knew as a Top Class Camera.
> 
> In October 1980 I started a journalism course at London's City
University,
> a nearby library had good photography books. There I found a copy of
Gianni
> Rogliatti's 'Leica The First Fifty Years'. Now I was hooked. Weeks later
I
> bought my first Leica, a IIIb with a rather ropy Summar, which I soon
> traded in for a 3.5cm Elmar.
> 
> I had reached a threshold on my mystic path. Pictures were harder to
take,
> but required more thought. I had but one lens; I learned to get closer to
> the subject; "Two rules in photography: One. Get Close. Two: Get closer
> still." (who's quote?) The little Leica's small size and unobtrusiveness
> allowed to me to take it everywhere and learn about street shooting using
> depth of field. One day at Paddington Station, an old gent came up to me.
> 'Leica, eh? the best.' I was still a student and this meant loads to me.
> "I'll tell you how to get correct exposures without a meter. Say you have
> 100 asa film. Set shutter to 1/100. Bright day use f16. Slightly cloudy
f8.
> Overcast: f4. Just remember to set the shutter to the reciprocal of the
> film speed and adjust accordingly..." So the Weston Master IV had to be
> relied on less and less.
> 
> One day I found an old 1960s copy of Leica Fotografie, in German. There
> inside was a picture of "Leicamann". A guy with an M-2, demonstrating how
> to hold the camera vertically. That had me sold. I wanted to be
Leicamann.
> Urbane, cosmopolitan, several notches above the photoproletarians with
> their Chinons and Cosinas with add-on motordrives, zooms and cheap
> hammerhead flashguns. I then realised I had become a camera snob. Not for
> me was impressing the unsophisticated.  I wanted to impress the
cognoscenti.
> 
> A year past, into my first job. I found an M2, battered, brassy but
usable
> for 125 pounds in North London.  Months elapsed before I could afford a
> lens for it. A 35mm Summicron M-from-screw conversion.  150 pounds at
City
> Camera Exchange (Waterloo) New Year sale.
> 
> Now I was in business. I took some of my best stuff with that camera and
> lens, b&w of people out and about, documentary pics of elderly Poles
living
> in Britain, landscapes, transport themes, all developed and printed at
home
> in my darkroom (Gamer enlarger, EL-Nikkor 50mm f2.8 lens). Right up to
> 20x16.
> 
> As income became more and more disposable, so the Leica obsession got a
> grip. Lenses, yeah, you can justify. But I started buying stuff I didn't
> *need* (just *craved*). Like a second body (near-mint M3 S/S) and a third
> body (used but useable M4). And last year an M6. One day, in Fox Talbot,
> Tottenham Court Road,  I was looking at a used M6. 'Too much'. That very
> moment, a guy walked in of the street wanting to sell *his* M6 to Fox
> Talbot. The shop assistant offered him 500 pounds less than the price
their
> M6 was displayed at. I 'pssst'd' the guy, we went outside and I offered
him
> the chance to split the difference. Next day we did the deal (after I'd
> checked his M6 - perfect then, perfect now).
> 
> Since then, the M6 is with me on all shoots (my new Minolta TC-1 being
with
> me EVERY day). The light meter has added a new ease to Leica photography.
I
> still miss shots through lack of autofocus and autoexposure. But 17 years
> with Leica M and much of the process becomes instinctive.
> 
> And I have a cheap way to satisfy the equipment craving; I collect old
> Soviet rangefinders. Each Sunday, Warsaw plays host to one of Europe's
> largest regular camera fairs, the Gielda Fotograficzna at the Stodola.
> 30,000 sq ft of stands. Upstairs you get the Russians, bringing in all
> maner of FEDs, Zorkis, Kievs, all at bargain-basement prices. The going
> rate for a Kiev 4 (Contax II copy) is 70 zloties - less than 20 bucks.
> Lenses, viewfinders, all there. Incidentally, a mecca for Leica fakes and
> forgeries - gold Leicas, Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe Leicas, all mint fakes
> made from Zorkis and FEDs.
> 
> Good to have got that off my chest and shared it with people who
*understand*
>