[Leica] Perfect weekend

[Jim Brick <jimbrick@photoaccess.com>]

My daughter and her boyfriend, just spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in
Hillsboro Oregon, visiting a friend. I gave my daughter a Yahoo map of
where Mark Rabiner lives and said "if you are near there, stop in and say
hi." Well, it turns out that they were near Mark's on Saturday and did just
that.

My daughter Jillian is 19, a music and photography student in college. Her
boyfriend (Dan) is a software engineer here in Silicon Valley. Neither are
on the LUG, or any other Email list, and have only briefly heard me mention
Mark Rabiner. Besides school, Jillian teaches piano (five students) and
works a couple of nights as a waitress in a local restaurant. She has a
Leica R7 and numerous lenses. And since the no interest 12 month buy and
heavy rebate Hasselblad program, she has a Hass 503CW and lenses. Dad
helped with the Hasselblad as I was able to upgrade to a 203FE and a $1500
rebate.

Jillian is working on a B&W portfolio for both school and herself. 11x14
Ilford Warmtone FB, mounted on 16x20 mount boards. Tri-X @ 200, Xtol 1:3.
Nothing could be finer... "than to be in Carolina in the mo-o-o-or-ning"
Sorry, nostalgic lapse.

I picked up Jillian and Dan at the San Jose airport last night. It was late
as the plane was three hours late. Alaska Airline. Read that as "nervous
dad." When they got in the car, the first words out of her mouth were "I
guess you know we met Mark Rabiner?" I said "yes." And she went on to
describe what a great time they had with Mark, his wife Karen, and German
Shepherd Elmo, what a great photographer he is, what a great darkroom and
studio he has, and on, and on, and on. Other than their visit to Powell's
Books, Mark, Karen, and Elmo was the center of all conversation.

Well, I've had many long private conversations with Mark. My local LUGger
friend Byron Rakitzis sees Mark somewhat regularly as Byron, being a
musician, has had numerous recent concerts in Portland. Between me,
Jillian, Dan, Byron, and Bob, I haven't detected anything but absolute
respect and admiration for Mark. He is truly a gentleman and a superb
photographic craftsman.

I think it boils down to: Those people with no sense of humor, no
imagination, no creative skills, are upset with their own pathetic state
and therefore attempt to dream up various theories to remove the onus of
mediocritism from themselves. 

As a charming friend of mine once said,

"Think of a lens hood as "A space case lens cap!". A lens cap with a
convenient hole in the middle for shooting! And fins!"

Perfect description. Keeps the enlightened folks enlightened. Keeps the
befuddled folks befuddled. Couldn't be better.

Jim