[Leica] 6th grade field trip

[Doug Herr <Telyt@compuserve.com>]

I was recruited at the last minute to drive a minivan full of 6th-graders
on an overnight field trip to the TheTech museum and the Winchester Mystery
house (among other places) in the San Jose, California area.  My passengers
were my daughter Kelsey (a.k.a. Boof, a.k.a. Goldilocks) and four of her
friends.

Our first stop was the Winchester Mystery House, an elaborate, bizarre
mansion built by the eccentric widow of Mr. Winchester, of Winchester rifle
fame.  The class' parents want photos of their kids in the "yearbook", and
I'm happy to provide the photos, particularly since I'd be on the field
trip anyway, the film was free, and photography gets me out of many of the
more mundane chores.  There were many photo opps in the surrounding gardens
as the class ate lunch, but in my experience with this group of kids, as
they approach the teen years my camera has become more and more an enemy to
be avoided at all cost.  Yet, as much as the kids avoided the gaze of my
Leica (R4sP), they'd pose for their friends' P&S and disposables.

Inspiration takes many forms and more often than not from unexpected
places; when it strikes I'm not always the first to recognize it.  Ms. Boof
started complaining that I hadn't brought the family camera (N**** FG) and
when she asked why I hadn't, I responded that it was because she was
unwilling to carry it.  This is where the inspiration struck; kids would
pose for their friends, the boof wanted to use a camera.  How many ways do
I have to say "Duhh"?

She's an experienced Leica R photographer (see "Goldilocks and the 3
cameras" from last summer), yet she found the 180 (f/3.4 APO) too long to
hold steady.  I replaced it with the 135 Elmarit-R, which she found very
much to her liking; in fact she said something like "it's mine" with a
mischevious grin.  With a caution to mind the shutter speeds I set her
loose in Auto, full field mode.  She found many willing subjects, and I
still got out of several chores.

While rewinding the film, Kelsey happily reported that she had gotten many
good portraits.  I can hardly wait to see the chromes.

Doug Herr
Sacramento
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/telyt