[Leica] Hammersley's Cricket Shoes at al.

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

>>>I am no revisionist, and I am certainly
no deconstructionist<<<


Marc,
Thanks for the long message. Still, I'm amazed that you'd cite ADS as
the source of your contentions. Aren't you the same guy who was
insisting last week that the Leica reps who said they monitored the LUG
don't necessarily do so, as their business is telling you what you want
to hear? As I deal with advertisers and their concerns all the time, day
in and day out, let me just assure you that not all advertisements are
infallible sources of objective information. <g>

Ads don't get more veracious as they recede backwards in time.

And as far as understanding Adams is concerned, what we're discussing
does raise one interesting possibilitiy to my mind. Namely, that perhaps
some disagreement or altercation with Leica during the period of his
endorsement LED to his later statements that he had "always preferred
Contaxes," which also seem to be an indisputable feature of the
historical record. He did seem careful to make his "endorsement" of
Leica's competitor retroactive! IOW, it's not inconceivable to me that
his willingness to endorse Contax later in life may have been
retribution for a slight or an offense suffered when he was endorsing
(presumably, for pay) the Leica. Knowing the pressures to which
advertisers subject their paid henchmen, and also knowing Adams's
independence and principles, such a "parting of the ways" is not very
difficult to postulate.

In any event, the one thing that is indisputable is that Adams is not
known for his 35mm work, despite the publication of a platry few
examples. Mark Rabiner is exactly right when he says that Adams is
indelibly associated with view cameras and sheet film, and that most
people are shocked to learn how often he used rollfilm. I can attest to
this latter fact firsthand.

Again, I wonder if someone could please supply the date of the R4's
introduction. Adams died in 1984, I believe. I think it is only possible
for him to have owned one for a short few years at the very end of his
life, long after his most productive years had ended and during a time
when he was involved mainly in darkroom work, consolidating his _ouvre_,
printing for backorders amassed by the late Harry Lunn, and printing the
vast "Museum Set" project. His ownership of an R4 at that time is a
trivial fact that bears little if at all on the preponderance of the
evidence. One might as well claim that Edward Weston was a "devoted
color photographer" because he shot a few sheets of 8x10 Kodachrome in
the '40s.

- --Mike