Re: [Leica] Olympus with a tenuous link to a Leica M3

[GREG LORENZO <gregj.lorenzo@shaw.ca>]

Hi Graham,

Great story and wonderful photos.

Regards,

Greg

- ----- Original Message -----
From: Graham Battison <graham@geebeephoto.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 3:58 pm
Subject: [Leica] Olympus with a tenuous link to a Leica M3

> I am sitting in the churchyard at Flore eating my lunch. The 
> service has
> been over for some time, a few stragglers are leaving the church after
> spending some time chatting. The sky is a typical English mix of 
> blue with
> white clouds in some parts and black as thunder in others.
> 
> I watch what I take to be worshipper set out on a footpath across 
> a field in
> front of the church and think to myself that she must be very 
> devout to walk
> from the next village to attend services. The path although fairly 
> dry today
> can be
> very messy. I take a shot, my usual stuff, landscape with lone figure.
> 
> When I look again the lone figure is on the far side of the field 
> and turns
> to come back toward the church. She is walking slowly, head 
> occasionallybowed, obviously lost in thought as if reluctant to 
> complete the field
> crossing.
> I toy with the idea of another shot but my sandwiches are good and 
> I let the
> moment pass.  I have since found out that her late father used to 
> walk his
> dog on that footpath.
> 
> Eventually she returns to the churchyard and stands over a grave 
> for a time
> then approaches me. She stops a distance from where I am sitting (very
> English) and asks if she might ask a favour of me (decidedly un-
> English).She explains that she used to live locally and had been 
> visiting her mother
> in nearby Daventry and that the grave she had been looking at was 
> that of
> her father. She was on her way back to Devon, where she now lives 
> afterreturning from several years in America and had stopped by 
> the church to
> take a photograph of the grave (she pays someone local to tend it).
> 
> Finding that the camera she thought was in the car was not there 
> she was
> considering where she might buy a disposable on a winters Sunday 
> in the UK
> when she saw me take a shot of her walking across the field. She 
> asks, "Was
> I a photographer?" and "would I take a photograph for her of her 
> fathers'grave?". "In the loosest possible sense" and "yes I would" 
> I replied.
> 
> I took a couple of shots, she thanked me profusely and with her 
> emotionsrunning high and my web address in her purse she left at 
> about 1:30pm. I
> finished my lunch and as insurance against looking an idiot I took 
> a few
> extra shots of the grave before I left.
> 
> Devon is quite a drive from Flore but at 7pm I got an email (maybe 
> she has a
> Lear jet) and she tells me that she has been smiling "about life's 
> littleco-incidences". Not only does she "meet a chap with a camera but
> a real photographer" (she has by this time visited my web site)
> and "you just never know your luck, do you?".
> 
> She closes her email with a post script:
> "I wonder if you know the work of James Ravilious? I think you would
> appreciate it. I had a small hand in the last published book of his
> photographs with text by Peter Beacham called 'Down the Deep Lanes'
> published by Devon Books. I'll give you further details if your
> interested."
> 
> I checked him out. He was born 1939, died 1999 and wandered around 
> Devonshooting local stuff with a Leica M3. It's a small world.
> 
> http://www.geebeephoto.com/temp/Flore/Flore.html
> 
> 
> Graham
> http://geebeephoto.com
> 
> 
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