Re: [Leica] Shutter Squeeze of the Day

[Francesco <fls@san.rr.com>]

I hope you plan on posting some of these interesting photos
to your website!   I would love to see these!

Francesco





At 09:31 PM 1/26/99 , WILLIAM CALDWELL wrote:
>Today (1/26/99) in Washington, DC, I had an appointment and reason to be
>on lower Connecticut Avenue, NW.  I was only two blocks from the
>Mayflower Hotel, where the media is conducting its present "Monica
>Watch," as an adjunct to the Impeachment Proceedings on the Hill.   The
>Mayflower is one of the better hotels in Washington, and its staff
>certainly knows how to provide accommodation to the media while
>providing for its clients.  I thought it might be interesting to squeeze
>off a couple of frames of the media stake-out.  When I arrived,
>approximately forty to fifty reporters, camera and boom people were
>talking and lounging close behind red velvet ropes on each side of the
>entrance to the Mayflower.
>
>My equipment was a M with a 2.8 Tele-Elmarit 90mm, which allows
>flexibility if you physically move in and out.  On the side of
>Connecticut closest to the Mayflower entrance, the Metropolitan Police
>had closed the curb lane and were allowing pedestrians to quickly trek
>in that lane across the roped opening to the Mayflower.  After taking a
>couple of close-ups of the positions that people put themselves in while
>they are trying to stay in a semi-state of readiness, I noticed that
>there was an open corridor to the Mayflower entrance by shooting from
>the other side of the street.
>
>I thought the opposite side would give me a better prospective of the
>stake-out gathering with the four brass portals of the Mayflower
>entrance and uniformed door man.  Moving over to the opposite side of
>the street, the prospective was as I thought and I squeezed a couple
>shots off.  A shooter with a big, white auto-focus lens/Canon had the
>same idea, and after a minute or two he exclaimed, "That's her luggage."
>I thought to myself -- "He knows her luggage?"   By this time a black
>SUV had pulled up to the curb, without blocking our photo corridor. 
>Both the Canon shooter and I moved into the center island between four
>yellow traffic lines (I quickly checked for "big white vans" which might
>be moving diagonally into the shooting corridor -- there were none).    
>
>The media, gathered behind the red ropes, swung into action, and out
>walked Monica Lewinksy towards the SUV and into my shooting corridor.  I
>squeezed off one at the portal and one just before she ducked her head
>to jump into the black SUV.  The next two shots were of the shooting
>frenzy around the SUV -- some folks had their zooms pressed to the
>windows.  In the next 20 seconds the shooting was over and the black
>SUV, with a police squad car leading, sped up Connecticut Avenue to the
>northwest.  My M had just collected four to six frames of side bar
>history to the Impeachment Proceedings. 
>
>Oh, the light was great at about 12:20 pm, as the Mayflower Hotel is on
>the east-northeast side of Connecticut Avenue, and it between f/5.6 and
>f/8 at 1/250.  I will probably develop the film on Thursday evening to
>see what I got.  As an aside, I saw no other Leicas, and I believe that
>my M and its 90 were the smallest equipment rig there.  All in all an
>interesting 10 to 15 minute shooting day for a non-professional. 
>
>Best regards and have great light tomorrow,
>
>Bill Caldwell
>Northern Virginia
>